Between Heaven and Hell
by aikitty
Summary: COMPLETE Naraku tricks Kagome, who under his influence willingly lets Inuyasha go to Hell with Kikyou. Upon discovering that it was a trap and befriending a woman she thought was an enemy, Kagome ventures into Hell to bring him home.
1. Chapter 01: If You Love Someone

**BETWEEN HEAVEN AND HELL**

Summary: When Naraku finally manages to trick Kagome, she willingly lets Inuyasha go to Hell with Kikyou--or so she thinks. When she discovers her mistake, she partners up with a woman she thought was her enemy in order to bring him home again...  
Rating: T (13+) for language, blood/death/violence, and the occasional perverted act from Miroku.  
Disclaimer: _Inuyasha_ and its characters do not belong to me, but to Rumiko Takahashi.

**Chapter 01: If You Love Someone, Let Them Go**

"SHIPPOU, YOU SHOULD probably leave Kagome alone for awhile," Miroku suggested quietly, his voice barely above a thin whisper. The small demon looked up at Miroku sadly, his green eyes confused and discontent.

"Why?" Shippou responded, ignoring the hushed tones of his older companion and speaking loudly without shame.

"She's grieving," Sango answered on Miroku's behalf, looking away from the back of her younger female comrade as they all followed her along the forest trail. It was a warm, sunny Autumn afternoon--bright and clear. The leaves of the trees above were murmuring softly with animals and breeze.

Kagome pretended to enjoy the day while she ignored her friends' conversation. She admitted to herself that she did feel a little foolish now, but mostly she felt empty and sad and restless... all the emotions she sometimes wished wouldn't exist in her human spectrum. She had been feeling that way for nearly a week, when Inuyasha had simply vanished. Everyone he had left behind had feared for the worst--that he would be found dead, maimed, or broken beyond repair. Despite his strength, they all worried. Especially because Kagome had just _known_ something was wrong. However, by several days later, they had found him--with Kikyou. Kagome's anger and subsided immediately when she had seen the look in his eye. It had seemed so strange that those two were ready to say farewell already, with still so much left undone.

"How... how could anyone hurt her like that?" Shippou asked honestly, innocently. He just could not understand.

Kagome went on remembering about the surreal pain--that sudden dash to the heart that lanced through her body like poison when she realized that he was waiting for _her,_ ready to say farewell to _her._ So she had smiled sadly, bravely, at Inuyasha's guilty face as he had told her all there was to tell, that he was going with Kikyou now and that they were relying on them to finish their task. She could recall the way her friends had all stood behind her, angry and upset, crying and staring and with pursed lips. Before them, as if it had been a task set aside for her and for her alone, she had answered with her own good bye.

A single tear had fallen from her cheek as she said, _"It's OK, Inuyasha. If with Kikyou is where you're happy, that's where I want you to be. Even though it hurts, it would hurt me more to keep you away from whatever makes you happy. We'll be OK without you. We'll reform the Jewel without you."_

"I would never hurt Kagome like that!" Shippou proclaimed loudly and boldly, his eyes flaring. "He's so mean!"

She had gone on to say, _"Whatever makes you feel at peace... please, all I want to do is tell you something."_

"It's amazing. How could he have turned down such a pure-hearted woman?" Miroku asked, shaking his head mournfully and with an obvious look of disbelief overtaking his reserved features.

"Even I cried... for him. If I had been him, I would've been so ashamed of myself I would never be able to look her in the face again. Who could have ignored such words?" Sango added with a smoldering glare directed at the ground.

She had told him, _"I want you to follow your heart, and I hope that where ever you go next... even if death... it is full of the happiness and the peace you deserve, for making me so happy during life..."_

"An idiot could have!" Shippou answered as he began to wail. He missed Inuyasha, but it was easier to blame him than it was to think about the loss.

"An idiot indeed. He had better be making her sacrifice worthwhile, where ever he is now," Miroku warned.

_"And if you ever need me, I always want you to know... that you can come back to me, even if from Hell, and I will never, ever turn you away."_

"Oh, he better be!" Sango threatened. "Or else I might just bring him back to life and kill him myself."

_"And I want you to know that I love you... I love you so, so much... so please forgive me if I have to cry."_

"If I could, I would hurt him right now!" Shippou declared as he continued to cry.

"It's OK, everyone. It's better this way, isn't it?" Kagome finally said to her companions. "If this is what he wants, then it's what I want--it's what we should all want."

"But it's eating you up inside!" Sango shouted at her. Kagome recoiled slightly while Shippou began to calm again, still sniffling.

"It's OK," Kagome repeated after some time, watching the ground. "I could never live with myself if I had been the one to hold him back. Anyway, haven't you heard that saying..."

_"But please, even if I do cry, or if I don't, please don't say good bye to me."_

"What saying, Lady Kagome?" Miroku pressed as Kagome began growing silent again.

"That if you love someone, let that person go..." Kagome answered quietly, remembering that pleading look in Inuyasha's eyes, as if he would break with her words. Kikyou next to him had been stoic and reserved.

_"Please, instead, just smile for me once, just a real smile... and let me know you're really happy now."_

"And... if he comes back to you, it's meant to be."

"That's all well and good, Kagome, but look at where he has left us," Sango began. "Looking at it practically, isn't it unnerving that he would leave without first destroying Naraku? That he wouldn't finish piecing the Jewel together? Just look at how he left us."

"He was tired. Aren't you? It's alright, everyone. We can manage. We'll manage, we _always_ manage."

"After he promised to protect you? After he has left us like this? Kagome..." Sango trailed off as Kagome's head dipped down further.

"It is strange, I know," she said, her voice fragile and tiny. "But maybe it's time to just let it go, to let him rest." She wanted to add, _even if it hurts me more than anything._ The smile that had followed her request, his last smile, had nearly broken her heart, but she returned it as the darkness of the earth began swallowing he and Kikyou.

"You're not leaving us for good, right, Kagome?" Shippou asked, suddenly worried. He had started to realize the way Kagome had been moving since they had let Inuyasha go--she had been moving like she was old and worn, like she was about to find sleep and never wake up from it.

"No," Kagome said. "I won't leave you. Not for a long, long time, Shippou." She tried to keep her voice from sounding too tired, even as she thought how nice it would be to rest, too.

"Let us make camp here for tonight," Miroku finally said, using his staff to point out a clearing in the wood. It was earlier than they normally stopped, but Inuyasha wasn't with them to disagree, so they unpacked and started a fire and watched it glow with a sort of reservation born of exhaustion. Kagome watched the stars through the swaying branches, as distant and cold as she felt, and imagined a place where she didn't feel so alone.

Kagome told herself to think of the bad things she would no longer miss now that Inuyasha was gone, but she could find nothing. Even the things that bothered her or hurt her feelings, she would miss only because they had been reminders that he was still by her side.

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"I'M HOME," KAGOME called out weakly as she entered her house two evenings later. Slowly and without her usual energy, she slipped her shoes off and stood still against the foyer wall. She was at sudden loss of what to do, as if she hadn't stepped foot in her house for so long that she had forgotten where she was. The happy calls of her mother, brother, and grandfather wafted in to wrap around her, gentle and the same as always, but she felt so far away from them, their warm welcomes only accenting their distance.

She told herself she would go up to her room, take a hot bath, and then get some studying done. Those plans changed into taking a nap. But she didn't want to do that, either--in doing any of those things, she would expect to look out her window and see Inuyasha there, scowling and ready to take her back to the feudal ages. Or to be looking over her shoulder with curiosity at her modern marvels. Or to be fumbling for a proper reason to drag her back with him when she clearly explained why she needed to be at home.

Without even that to look forward to...

Without his gruff attitude or his small blushes...

His frown or his warm hand holding hers...

His bumbling words or his loyal devotion...

Was it even worthwhile to return?

So instead of seeking out the pain and the reminder of her loss, instead of doing something more practical, she curled up on the chair closest to Souta in front of the television and watched a cartoon program without really paying attention. She tried to take comfort in the familiarity of the warm room around her; the common and ordinary television, the safety found only in her home. Her family did not question her sorrow.

From time to time, her mother sent her a curious glance but was answered with Kagome's profile looking tired and maybe upset. Kagome did not return her mother's glances, afraid that she might find something there to make the surreal pain of loss become suddenly true. She had not openly mourned with tears yet.

Later in the night, when she finally forced herself to find her bed, with the gentle tapping of falling November leaves against her window, she thought of nothing at all. She just watched the leaves, black and gray in the half-moon light, as they softly drifted to the ground below. The moon glowed pale silver through the branches, but the stars crowning it were too faint to see because of the city lights. She curled up tightly in a ball as the tree's branches clipped the window in a gust of unruly Autumn wind.

That tree seemed so empty now, without him crouching in the branches, looking in at her while she did her homework or slept soundly in her bed. And now, he would never perch up there again.

He would never carry her through the forests; the wind would never be her playful enemy, pulling her back as Inuyasha rushed faster than she thought she would ever go. She would never feel his hand again, his arms around her, his warmth.

She would never see him pout or worry or smile.

She would never see who he would have become after their journey was over, if he ever found peace and contentment.

He would never watch over her from those tree branches, or of any he had perched in during the past, as he had done for every night of the past three years of her life.

She would never hear his heart beat when he held her close to him when she was too weak to walk on her own...

Her love for him would grow old and crumble in her heart, but it would always be there--filling her up--even if as ashes. And maybe she would never feel whole again.

For the first time in three years, she was afraid. And then she cried.

She cried loudly and wept like she was broken. She lost herself in the ocean taste and the burning flame in the back of her throat, the heat in her eyes. She wished it was healing, but it was nothing more than an escape--a last plea that when she stopped everything would be alright and he would hold her.

"He's go-oh-ohnne, he's go-oh-ohnne," she whimpered, pressing her face against her pillow as tears seared her cheeks. She was swallowed up with loss, escaping in her tears, so she never heard her mother come in and collect her in her arms.

When no more tears would fall, she wept dryly for awhile, until her throat would no longer weep, and then she pulled away from her mother. She looked up into the older woman's warm blue eyes, needing the comfort and the understanding she found there. Her mother recognized that look--the searching, yearning, sorrowful look--because the same horrible emotions had consumed her years ago.

"It's OK, Kagome, my baby girl," her mother whispered to her, holding her daughter against her and stroking her hair. "Where ever he is now, I'm sure he's thinking of only you."

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"THAT WAS PERHAPS the most rewarding display I have seen for a long time." Naraku grinned at Kanna as Kagome's image disappeared from the enchanted mirror. Naraku seemed relaxed and joyful for the first time in many months. "It is challenging indeed to trick that girl. Try too hard and she sees right through it. Fail to try hard enough and it will not even scathe her spirit. It has been impossible to do for these past three years, for everything I tried. Ah, but I hit the mark this time... I sure hit the mark, this time." He chuckled. "Keep weeping, priestess," he said quietly. "It will do no good now."


	2. Chapter 02: So Go

**BETWEEN HEAVEN AND HELL**

**Chapter 02: So Go, Like a Feather on the Breeze**

_:One week earlier:_

"WHERE DO YOU think you're going?" Inuyasha snapped, his eyes narrowed suspiciously at Kagome as she stood up, brushing dirt away from her clothes as she set down her empty bowl on the floor of Kaede's hut.

"I'll be back tomorrow, I just need to go spend some time with my brother for his birthday," Kagome replied evenly, sending a small warning glare at Inuyasha.

"What?" he barked, oblivious to her warning.

"Listen, Inuyasha. It's not like we can do anything right now anyway. Miroku is sick in bed and Sango is still hurting. It's just for a day or two, I promise." She offered him a fleeting smile.

Inuyasha sighed heavily. "Fine... but if you're late, I'm warning you..." Inuyasha trailed off, frowning at Kagome.

"Thanks a bunch, Inuyasha!" Kagome replied with her most brilliant of smiles, grateful that no argument had arisen.

"Keh! I'm only letting you go because you'll be annoying if you--"

"Thanks!" Kagome interrupted. She had made it this far without a fight, and as long as she could help it she would prevent one from unfurling. She turned and left Kaede's hut with her emptied yellow back pack dangling from her shoulders. When she was gone from sight, Inuyasha gave a disgruntled snort and mentally began cursing her unyielding desire to study and lay about her house.

A startled, terrified scream erupted from somewhere outside of Kaede's hut, immediately catching Inuyasha's attention--it had sounded like Kagome. He quickly rushed after the sound, too intent on finding and helping Kagome to wonder why the sound hadn't come from the direction of the well's location. Stumbling into a small clearing just inside a patch of forest, Inuyasha found a large, winged demon towering over Kagome, who had been knocked backwards. Without a moment of hesitation, Inuyasha easily ripped his claws through the demon before turning to Kagome.

"You hurt?" he asked her gruffly, trying to sound unconcerned.

"I think I twisted my ankle..." Kagome replied sheepishly, giving him an apologetic look as she brushed her leg tenderly. Inuyasha crouched down next to her to examine it for himself.

"You stupid woman..." he muttered when he realized her injury wasn't very serious. "Where's your bow? Here, climb on." Inuyasha turned around and waited for Kagome to clamber up on his back. Before she did so, something seemed to pierce his neck, twice. He leaped away from the spot and turned, rubbing his neck. He looked suspiciously at Kagome, who was now standing easily on both feet.

"Now Inuyasha..." she said, smirking. Inuyasha watched in horror as she melted into Naraku's shape, the overwhelming, acrid smell of miasma and blood overtaking Kagome's familiar scent. "Let's break that annoying little twit's heart, shall we? I hope you're ready for another betrayal." Inuyasha lost control of his body and obediently followed Naraku where he led him, despite his internal struggling.

Several days went by before Naraku presented his newest scheme to the small band that had been a thorn in his side since the Jewel resurfaced.

Under Naraku's control, Inuyasha unwillingly held a doll with Kikyou's shape. Kagome, followed by the others, stumbled into the clearing where he stood with the false woman clamped to his side.

"Kagome..." Inuyasha heard himself murmur, the Jewel shards in his neck pricking as he attempted fruitlessly to take control over his own body.

Kagome straightened suddenly, he saw all her anger melt away. An understanding expression, marked otherwise only by hurt, took its place.

"Will you be OK? Kikyou and I are going now," he said in an unnaturally soft, caring voice. He wanted to grimace. Inwardly, he willed Kagome to sense the Jewel shards in his neck, although Naraku himself had said he had painted over them with a temporary deceptive mask. Kagome would not be able to see them while they were hidden by his poison.

Inuyasha struggled against the power of the Shikon shards, wanting desperately for Kagome to lose her temper with him--to yell out the subduing command and tell him, "No! You do not have my permission to go!" with all the force he had used to fight her when she tried to go home. No, you cannot go home. No, you cannot leave me here alone. But he knew she would not.

"It's OK, Inuyasha. If with Kikyou is where you're happy..." He listened painfully as she let go of all her heart before dooming him to Hell. Inuyasha had looked at her with as much pleading as he could will into his captivated body. _Please don't do this,_ he tried to tell her. But she did not see through the deception of Naraku's plan.

When Kagome and the others turned away, shaking their heads and walking back the way they had come, Hell opened and he slipped into darkness.

He had been betrayed again, betrayed in a way that made _him_ feel guilty and ashamed.

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KAGOME WOKE LATE the following morning, after dreaming of white serpents in the sky and a place so dark no light could reach it. She shied away from company and from school, just wanting to be alone for awhile and not concentrating on excuses or chemical equations and logarithms.

Instead of going to school, where she would be forced to explain her forlorn expression to her friends (who were unnaturally very good at reading moods), she sat across from her mother in the sewing room as the older woman patched holes along the hem of Kagome's school uniform. Kagome just stayed in the sunlight coming through the window and rested her cheek against her palm, thinking of nothing but how warm it felt in the small room and how much softer the sun seemed now in Autumn.

"Dear, do you want to tell me what happened?" her mother began. "Sometimes it helps to talk."

"I know," Kagome replied in a small voice. Her mother went on with the task of fixing her skirt unheeded. "Mama," Kagome eventually began timidly. "He... chose to go with that other girl. He chose to die for her," Kagome replied, biting her bottom lip. Now it was becoming solid, factual. It was now a truth.

"Oh, Kagome..."

"But... I'm not selfish for wishing he was still here, right?" Kagome asked, her eyes watering. "I just..."

"You know, Kagome," her mother said as she paused her sewing. "I can say nothing that will make the hurting stop, but I know that you're a strong girl. I know how much it hurts, Kagome, I know how much it hurts." The older woman trailed off in retrospect. She frowned for a moment and her eyes were briefly consumed with heartbreak, and then she smiled and looked wiser. "But after time, it will not hurt as bad. It will be bittersweet, and the memories you have will make you glad and grateful to have ever had him in your life. But until then... just be yourself. Be strong. And you can tell me anything you wish, darling, anything you wish to recount or any time you're hurting."

Kagome smiled sadly and looked out the window again, watching the tree limbs shake in the breeze. A whirl of red and gold leaves drifted to the ground, lightly and lazily, and their shadows drifted through the window and spilled onto the wood floor.

"Thanks, Mama."

"Now, here--go try this on and model it for me."

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"HEY, GRAMPS," KAGOME greeted the elderly man wearily as she met him in the cool sunshine of the courtyard.

"Oh, Kagome!" Her grandfather paused in his task of sorting through a bag of dried herbs of some unrecognizable variety. Abruptly he told her, "You cannot go to school today!"

"It's too late to go to school now," Kagome said. "But humor me, Gramps... why can't I go?" She raised en eyebrow as he fidgeted.

"Ehh, that's because..." he started nervously. He had not thought this far ahead.

"Because?" Kagome pressed, giving him a sincere look.

"Because..."

"Buyo! Snack time!" Kagome shouted, snatching the bag of herbs away from her grandfather and dangling them in the air. The cat rose its face into the air to sniff at the contents of the bag.

"Aeh! It's because I told them you were sick!"

"Sick with what?" she continued. When her grandfather made no move to continue, she lowered the bag within a more accessible area for Buyo. The fat cat only continued to sniff the bag.

"A cold! Now, give that back to me!" he ordered. Kagome eyed her grandfather as he pulled the bag out of her hands. "So disrespectful!"

"A cold, Grampa? I'll just ask Souta when he gets home from school, you know."

"Alright, alright! I told them you were love sick!" he wailed despairingly, smoothing out the package of herbs as if he had saved something precious from a terrible accident. Kagome released a dramatic sigh.

"Not too far from the truth," she mumbled, turning to leave the courtyard.

"Wait! Kagome!" her grandfather called ruefully before she could depart.

"Eh? What now, Gramps?"

"Can you sweep the steps for me? My, uh... my old back cannot handle it on this day."

"You can try not lying... and I'll be glad to do it for you." In reply, she found an old wicker broom pressed into her hands. Complying with another sigh, Kagome took the tool from her grandfather and wandered toward the shrine steps.

For most of the afternoon, she listlessly brushed dirt and grit away from the steps while she, again, resumed a state of numbness of mind, thinking only of simple things that would allow the pang of loss to sleep within her heart. When she finished sweeping, the leaned the broom against the pillar of the entranceway and sat down next to it on the top step, her chin in her palms as she concentrated on a small crack along the cement.

She was too empty to cry now. Before she had gone to her mother in the sewing room, in the company of only herself, she had cried to a point that she was beginning to feel was pathetic, even for a girl in grieving. She wondered how her eyes could hold so many tears.

Kagome remembered the first time she had cried, early in the morning. She had wandered into the kitchen to prepare Souta's school lunch for her mother. While searching for a sheet of wax paper in which to wrap his lunch, she had opened up a cabinet to find it full of cup noodles. She had laughed at herself for crying, trying to tell herself that she was being ridiculous, but she had cried anyway.

A second time, she had attempted to study and so pulled out her math notes. She was searching through the pages and looking for a solution to an earlier problem to check her work against, and found a small doodle of a stick figure with dog ears. A small speech-bubble indicated that it was insulting another stick figure for being intelligent. Kagome had drawn it one night several weeks ago after she and Inuyasha had shared a particularly bad fight, and it had been her way of unwinding. When she first came across it, a small smile tugged the corners of her lips before she began to cry again, because it reminded her that he was gone.

A final time, after she had talked with her mother and just before meeting her grandfather, she had found herself under the old God tree, the place where she felt the closest to Inuyasha. She did not feel close to him at all as she pulled herself up into the branches. After garnering several scrapes and with immense struggle, she had managed to wiggle her way up between several of the branches. From her perch above the world, she had looked down at the city, at the tops of the cold buildings in the distance, and the cars that looked as small as toys on the roads. For awhile she had just watched peacefully, displaced from the rest of the human race, and allowed her mind to wander across all subjects that interested her before she thought on Inuyasha. And she could not stop the tears that followed.

With a push, Kagome lifted herself from the ground and then put the broom away in the shed as she decided to try for a nap.

Kagome slept through supper and the rest of the night deeply, hardly turning and breathing shallowly, and awoke early the next morning. She could not find sleep again no matter where she looked for it, so she finally resorted to taking a hot bath. After she had finished that, she packed up her yellow back pack with more supplies and said farewell to her family as she trudged towards the well. She hoped that in the past, with her friends who were all experiencing her same grief, she would find more peace.

When she came halfway along the path worn by her many trips to and from Kaede's hut, however, she realized she wasn't quite ready to meet up with her friends. So instead, she took her bicycle (which seemed to now have a permanent home in the Warring States era) and rode for a short way into the forest, her overstuffed pack left leaning against the well with her Shikon shards dangling from a chain around her neck.

She came eventually to a new path but failed to notice it because she was looking upwards at the cloudy sky--she had been thinking on how different the weather was in the past from at home when she began to notice pale flashes along the clouds. She followed the location of the flashes until they resolved themselves against the atmosphere. Scarring the dim gray splash were demons... pale-colored demons, wispy, with large black eyes almost blindly swiveling around their sockets, sharp noses cutting through the air, and with delicate fingers holding small fireflies of light.

"Soul skimmers..." she whispered to herself, almost in a daze.

The logical part of her brain told her that they must be someone else's spirits, someone else's monsters, because she herself had seen Kikyou step into Hell with Inuyasha's hand in hers. She had seen them swallowed up by the yawning, unending darkness.

And yet, that suddenly wasn't good enough. Doubts and hopes began to fill her mind, and the only way to either confirm or debunk those doubts and hopes was to follow the soul skimmers where they went and see to whom they were going.

She pedalled her bike as fast as she could to where the demons were dipping through the sky and diving into the trees. She whipped past branches so fast they were a blur, and her breath was rushing in her mouth as fiercely as she was pedalling as she pushed herself at a pace even Inuyasha himself would not have scoffed at.

When she got to where the soul skimmers were leading her, as the morning grayness drifted down between the tree crowns in a fine, cool mist that made her shiver, it was Kikyou whom she saw.

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Author's Notes: (I got the "love sick" idea from anime episode 90.)

XOXO,  
Kyubi Kyebu


	3. Chapter 03: I'd Die to Set You Free

**BETWEEN HEAVEN AND HELL**

**Chapter 03: I'd Die to Set You Free**

KAGOME BLINKED IN momentary surprise and stared openly at Kikyou, who was quietly sitting against a tree and rubbing at her shoulder as if coaxing away an old pain. Kagome could not doubt the woman sitting before her. It was Kikyou.

Kagome's mind whirled through question after question--the validity of what she had seen, of what she was seeing. She asked herself if whom she was seeing was a trap, or if maybe what she had seen last time was a trip. Finally she wondered if she was simply delusional with grief.

"Kikyou..." Kagome whispered quietly, as if the single name would answer her questions. The older priestess made no acknowledgment that she had heard Kagome either enter the clearing with her or speak. She leaned back against the tree a little more. "Kikyou..." Kagome said again, her voice stronger. "Where is Inuyasha?"

Kikyou cracked an eye open at the question and replied in a neutral voice, "I am not his keeper. I would not know, girl."

"But... but you two went to Hell together, just days ago! I saw you! Is this a trick?" Kagome cried out, leaning her bike against a tree trunk as she stepped into the clearing. The dim morning chilled her and she wiped mist away from her face.

"This is nonsense," Kikyou eventually said. "Why, girl, would I go to Hell when Naraku still wanders this earth? Furthermore, why would I spend the time to trap you?"

Kagome swallowed thickly. It felt like her throat was filled with sand. "What's going on, then? How..? Did..?"

A caustic chuckle sliced through the air. Kagome spun on her heel in time to meet Naraku's smirk as he joined them in the clearing.

"Well, well..." he chided.

"Naraku!" Kagome and Kikyou uttered in unison. Fully alert now, Kikyou opened her eyes wide and struggled for her bow. Only then Kagome realized how badly her incarnation was injured; her shoulder was wet with blood and her soul skimmers were rapidly bringing her rejuvenating spirits. Kikyou stood straight and tall while the skimmers did their work, her bow ready.

"How?" Naraku repeated. Kagome blinked up at him in confusion. She had forgotten her question with his appearance. "Why, little priestess, it was no hard thing at all to trick you. All I had to do was lure Inuyasha away from you, to me, and what better way to do that than t make him believe that you, dear little thing, were in trouble? Insert a masked shard or two, and the filthy half-dog is all mine. Commission a witch not unlike Kikyou's 'mother' to make up a new doll--empty of spirit, of course--and I have the complete set! With their scents, the fox cub and the fire-cat demon's noses were tricked. With their auras masked, the monk was tricked. Acting perfectly in personality, the slayer was tricked. And with the Shikon shards hidden by my new poison... and with the only darkness in your heart causing doubt in you... it was no hard thing to have you betray Inuyasha and send him into Hell..."

"So, Naraku," Kikyou said with a deadly sort of calm as Kagome, with her jaw dropped, looked hopelessly around the clearing. "It has taken you three years to think of something so obvious..."

Accented by a cry of anguish from Kagome, Kikyou shot her bow straight at Naraku's heart. He crumbled to ash and dirt, down to his wooden puppet core, and his chuckle rang in the clearing long after his image had been destroyed.

"Of course he would not come to visit an injured priestess and a defenseless girl himself, the vile coward..."

While Kikyou hid a wince and settled down against the tree again, Kagome wildly reviewed everything she had just learned. Anger was building over the feeling of loss now, anger both at Naraku for tricking her and at herself for being tricked. But, after a moment of thinking on all of this, she pushed such worries aside and moved onto something bigger.

If there was a way to send Inuyasha, still living, into Hell in such an unconventional manner, surely there was some way to bring him home just as alive.

"Kikyou!" Kagome cried frantically. "You--you can open the portal into Hell, can't you?"

"I can..." Kikyou confirmed as she eyed Kagome warily. The older priestess did not trust her reincarnation's desperate tone, her desperate look. She knew what kind of acts people committed when they had such a desperate look. And she had a terrible hunch to where this was all leading. She tried to tell herself that Kagome, with her soul, was much too sensible for it...

"You've got to let me go get him! Please, open the portal for me!"

"Are you suicidal?" Kikyou asked, almost snarling, as she stared at Kagome in disbelief.

"I'm going to bring Inuyasha back! It's possible, isn't it?"

"The odds are unimaginably low," Kikyou replied seriously, looking into Kagome's eyes, trying to convey how desperate the younger girl was sounding.

"But it is possible?"

"Yes."

"Please, oh please, Kikyou, let me go after him!"

Kikyou sighed and shook her head. "It is far too dangerous. Hell is chaotic and full of things that would devour a priestess like you. There is no rhythm to the world there, with no straight path to walk and no definition. The monsters where could, and gladly would, consume your very soul. Hell is a completely different place, girl. More than your simple life would be at risk. Your soul... my soul... could be damned for eternal suffering should you take but one wrong step."

"I understand--and I still want to go." The morning mist no longer seemed cold, Kagome though vaguely. She felt feverish.

"Girl, even if in that chaos you did happen upon him, it would then be even more dangerous to get him back here."

"I understand. I'll still try."

"... Why?" Kikyou asked, giving Kagome a baffled expression, her brow furrowed thoughtfully. "Why would you do this for someone doomed to Hell, anyway? Why would you do this for someone whom you have just let go based on his alleged love for someone else? Surely you do not expect anything as payment."

"I don't," Kagome answered. "I don't expect anything. But it's my fault he's there. And even if he doesn't love me, I still love him more than I knew I could. He has done so many things for me. I couldn't live with myself if I didn't just try to save him now. Even if I save him to have only one more day in his company, that will make the risks worthwhile. Please, Kikyou, please help me..."

Kikyou sighed and shook her head. "Very well," she replied. "I will do what I can. I will open the gate to Hell for you. But as I said, it will be terribly difficult to find him--"

"But he still has a Shikon shard, right?" Kagome interrupted. "I should be able to sense him, now that it is out of Naraku's grasp?"

"Considering he still even has the shards, that the Jewel still contains any power there, that the poison Naraku drenched it with has worn off."

"Oh."

"But if you find him, bring him back the way you came, or as close to the way you came as you can, considering the way will have probably changed by then. Listen to me closely, girl, you must stay hidden. Many of the devils there are harmless enough to you... as you are entering a spirit world, your spiritual power will come easier and in more abundance; thus many enemies will simply crumble on approaching you. However, just as in the world of the living, there are intelligent creatures there, none of which will like your company other than as a meal. Hell has no law, and, it being home of the damned, you can expect nothing good of being captured."

"OK." Kagome nodded.

"While there, do not let any of the devils or demons or damned--anything, do not let anything touch you. You are a living priestess. If you come into direct contact with anyone there, they will be able to sap you of your life power and your spiritual power, restoring their own life and breath by stealing it from you. Do not give your life away to them. Let only Inuyasha take your energy. When--no, if--you find Inuyasha, you must not allow him to use his sword after coming in contact with you. His sword will again become corporeal, and if he dare take but one swing with it, there is a likely chance that he will rip through Hell and release the monsters back into the world of the living. If you make it as far as Inuyasha, which I doubt, also be warned that the longer you stay in Hell the less chance you have of surviving. The longer you stay, the more your energy will drain; likewise, the more energy will drain from Inuyasha once you contact him, which means you will have to supply his life continuously. You'll be drained to emptiness if you stay too long, and then if I release you back into this world you'll be no better than I."

"I understand."

"Eat or drink nothing. Nothing. Not even if Inuyasha offers it. Finally, I am going to set up a... connection... between you and me. As the gate to Hell will close behind you when you enter, I will need to know when you are prepared to return--if ever. In order to return to this world, I will need to open the hole up again. What I am going to do is allow you to make your presence in my mind, to speak to me, to tell me when you are at the entrance again--or anyway, where I first let you in. That is where the two worlds run parallel. Is all this clear?"

"Yes. I'll do my best."

"Girl, you had better do more than your best if you even have the hope of succeeding."

Shaking her head as if she pitied Kagome, Kikyou pushed herself up from the ground. After a moment filled with merely her concentrated look, she solemnly sighed a hopeless sigh and began opening the portal.

"Lady Kagome!" Miroku shouted. Kagome turned her head to the sound of her approaching friends.

"We sensed Naraku near by and--Kikyou!" Sango said, jaw dropping.

"Guys, I'm going to get Inuyasha. I'll be back soon, I promise!" she replied without further explanation. Lightly, she jumped through the darkness Kikyou had created as her friends stared after her with clearly marked shock.

"What the hell is going on!" Sango demanded of Kikyou when the magic and dust had settled, leaving behind only a weary Kikyou and no sign at all of their futuristic companion.

"It was her choice, not my own," Kikyou shrugged. "She wished to retrieve Inuyasha..."

"What!" came three voices simultaneously.

"Your friend just jumped," Kikyou said with serious calm, "willingly into Hell."


	4. Chapter 04: I've Got a Hundred Smiles

**BETWEEN HEAVEN AND HELL**

**Chapter 04: I've Got a Hundred Saved Smiles**

WHEN KAGOME HAD leaped into the darkness that Kikyou had created, she had closed her eyes as tight as they would go. Sailing through what seemed like eternity itself had given birth to her fear. She was afraid of what she would see, and she was afraid of what she would have to do. But when she opened her eyes and was met with a place far from chaotic, she calmed and began looking around slowly, observing everything she could.

She was in a forest, one with the trees made strangely. Some were made of stone, and some were made of paper and some of bone and some of wood. From none hung any leaves although they all contained fruits of varied kinds, with apples and cherries and even multiple types of vegetables, as well, hanging from different branches of the same tree. There were also some fruits among them that were unrecognizable to her.

She could hear no bird nor the breath of any living thing; the world was eerily still, covered only in a darkness that seemed to faintly glow. There was no real light filtering between the strange tree branches--merely the glow whose source Kagome could not trace. The only sound she could hear at all was the faint pattering of a slow-moving stream, and that itself was a sound more calming than chaotic.

Kagome walked off the trail to instead follow the creak. Kikyou had mentioned nothing about staying on paths, only that she should stay out of sight, and as such Kagome decided it was safer to follow the stream while keeping watch on the path--if she were to run into any monster, she would prefer one she would find in the cover of the forest than anything she might find on the road.

Approaching the stream, Kagome realized that the water was churning awkwardly in the river. It was very dark, without even a silver glimmer of the forest's glow in it, and it was flowing slowly--as if muddied. Finding herself directly next to it, she caught the scent of copper and a strong smell of hemlock.

Kagome reeled backwards from the water, eyes wide as a small bubble welted from the stream and collapsed on itself, and her thoughts erupted into horrified questions.

_A river of poison, did you find?_ Kikyou asked somewhat wryly.

_Kikyou? Can you hear everything I think?_ Kagome replied, trying to calm her pounding heart.

_Oh, no,_ Kikyou explained. Just the loud ones. _Those thoughts instinctively occupy your whole mind and therefore overflow into the 'channel' we're sharing. You had better continue, the little companion of yours is crying._

_Shippou? Oh... OK, I'm on my way again_. Kagome rubbed her forehead and sighed. Despite the tension that frequently formed between herself and Kikyou, she could not help but feel grateful and a little comforted now that they wiser girl had a presence in her mind. Kagome was not invincible, which she knew all too well, and in Hell she was alone. But with a purpose and Kikyou's help, her inspiration was renewed and she pushed her discomfort and fear aside.

Kagome crept quietly along the river for awhile longer, carefully minding the splashing, sluggish poison that was her only company. After some time of walking, the entire forest abruptly dissolved into a new world entirely. After blinking to block out a sudden onslaught of cool, bright sunlight, Kagome's eyes adjusted and she found that she was now on the edge of a series of mountains. Behind her was the forest.

Kagome groaned mentally as she realized she would have to cross the mountains to continue her voyage. They stretched on imperceptibly in both ways--Kagome could not even see a patch of sky that was not covered with peaks.

She immediately began a search for the quickest route through the wall of stone and snow. Coming out of the last circle of shade from the forest and entirely into the light that bathed the mountains, Kagome also took notice of a pinkish tint of light that seemed to surround her.

_Kikyou, is this pink light around me my spiritual energy?_

_Presumably,_ Kikyou answered indifferently. _Try it if you must, but be cautious with it. Do not attract unwanted attention, nor waste your energy._

Putting Kikyou's warning aside, Kagome experimentally held up one hand and formed a tight fist. The pink energy intensified around her hand. Giving a delicate punching motion, the energy spilled off her hand rapidly and crashed into the rocks, causing a pile of small ones to crack open and spill out along the mountain's feet. Kagome stared wide-eyed before she exhaled with relief, suddenly feeling a little safer.

With one more long, regretful glance along the mountain range, Kagome randomly chose a place that looked easiest and began picking her way through chunks of rock and dust. Near the base of the mountains there was no snow, so she decided to stay as close the bottom of the mountains as she could and plow her way through. She thought it would be a terrible thing to die of frostbite in Hell.

Kagome spent the remainder of the day in a pattern of climbing, jumping, slipping, and falling. By the time night fell over the mountains, she was exhausted. She had been climbing all day through a difficult terrain, and at several points she had been made to retrace her journey and began anew. Her muscles were sore and her body ached. Gratefully, however, she felt neither hunger nor thirst, which meant she could safely abide Kikyou's warning to consume nothing without too much pain. If she had really worked up the appetite that went along with her current exhaustion, Kagome reasoned she probably would not be able to continue.

However, as she was so tired, and as she realized she was in something of a safe place unoccupied by monsters or devils, she began looking for a place to sleep. Eventually, she stumbled upon a small cove carved out along the lap of one of the many mountains, and wearily crawled into the dark shelter. She fell instantly into a deep, satisfying slumber.

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_GIRL._ THE WORD was sharp and indifferent, and completely unwanted in Kagome's dreams.

"Five more minutes, please..." Kagome groaned out, rolling over. Her sleeping bag seemed to be laid on something extraordinarily hard.

_Girl._

"Inuyasha... sit." When there was no satisfying sound of a body meeting with the ground, Kagome blinked slowly awake. Sunlight streamed into the cave lightly, causing the dust to glow in grainy beams around her. It barely brushed her where she stood, but Kagome hardly noticed. She was watching a small girl whose shape filtered the light into soft columns. The girl had her head cocked and her brown eyes were wide.

_Kikyou... I hear you,_ Kagome replied distractedly, warily eyeing the girl at the cave's mouth.

_Good. Continue your journey. I do not wish to wait for you while you take a holiday._

_Sure thing,_ Kagome answered, mildly ruminating on the attitude problem Kikyou and Inuyasha seemed to share.

Kagome stood up slowly, minding her head against the low roof of the cave. In the back of her mind, she remembered that she was Hell and that there must be a reason for the little girl to be there. She could not bring herself to look away from the child, however. She had never been able to ignore children.

"Umm... hello?" Kagome offered meekly.

"Eep!" the girl squeaked, cowering behind the frame of the cave's mouth, still too curious to run away completely. Kagome smiled a little at herself. The child could be no more than six or seven, which made Kagome ask herself why she could belong in Hell. She warned herself that it might be some devil's disguise.

"Please, I'm not going to hurt you. My name is Kagome," she said, smiling brighter at the girl. The child crept back in slowly and quietly, never taking her eyes away from Kagome.

"I'm Miharu," she said after a few minutes of staring at Kagome.

"OK, Miharu... can you tell me why you're in Hell? You don't look bad to me."

She looked at the ground sadly. "Not only bad people go to Hell," she said finally. "My village was being attacked by a demon, and it was choking me," she explained, imitating the motion by grasping the air with her small fists. "A traveling priest tied to send it here. But the demon dis-ta-rupted his power and the priest banished me, too, on assident."

Kagome chewed her lip, looking at the little girl with sympathy. The story could be valid, she told herself. After all, she herself had nearly become an accidental in Hell while trying to save Mayu.

_Kikyou?_

_Hmm?_

_This little girl... she says she's not supposed to be in Hell, that she was accidentally banished here._ Kagome waited for an answer. After some time, she heard Kikyou give a mental sigh.

_Does she have a pure aura?_

_I can't tell, humans aren't the same as demons._

_Alright, have you tried focusing your own energy yet?_

_Yeah,_ Kagome replied as she remembered shattering the stones with a small blast of pink energy.

_Instead of attempting to gather up your own energy, try to focus the girl's energy. Pretend to be her._

Kagome closed her eyes and concentrated, imagining that she was Miharu. The small child's energy felt different from her own, but it was good and pure. Kagome opened her eyes and smiled at Miharu's curious look.

_It's as pure as I can tell._

_Answer your question?_

_Huh? Oh, yes, thanks._ Kagome added out loud, "Well, Miharu, how long have you been here? Do you know your way around?" She scooted closer to the girl until the two were sitting close enough to touch. Miharu did not seem to mind.

"I kinda know my way..." the girl answered as she scrunched up her nose.

"I'll tell you what. I'm looking for a friend here in Hell. Once I find him I'm going back home to Earth. If you stick with me, I'll take you with, too."

"Really? Are you sure you're not a devil?" she asked hopefully, as if Kagome might have forgotten what she was. Then she narrowed an eye suspiciously at Kagome and gave her the most scrutinizing look she could muster.

"Is there anything I can do to prove who I am to you?" Kagome asked.

"Well..." Miharu trailed off as she scratched her cheek. "You're alive, right? Let me hold your hand, then I'll know." Kagome hesitated and chewed her lip, remembering Kikyou's warning. If she allowed Miharu to touch her, the child would consume her energy.

She nodded once. "OK," she agreed, stretching out her hand. Miharu grasped her hand. It was a strange feeling for Kagome, as if she was pouring herself slowly into a cup. Before Kagome could retract her hand forcibly, afraid of giving too much to the girl, Miharu let go.

"Yeah, your hand's warm so I believe you. OK, who are we looking for?" she asked brightly, a brilliant smile on her small face as she clapped her tiny hands together.

Kagome began to explain.

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_HOW IS YOUR journey going?_ Kikyou asked sometime later.

_Oh, hello, Kikyou. Kagome chewed her lip and let out a sigh. We're in a situation here._

_Oh?_

_Yeah, well, we made it out of the mountains OK. Luckily this kid knew her way around up there. But right now we're trying to decide which way to go from here._

_I can't help you now, girl. This is up to you._

_Yeah, well, thanks anyway._ Kagome sighed again.

"Alright, Miharu," she said out loud, "you say these paths always change right? They're never in the same order." Kagome hummed thoughtfully and looked at where the road split into three different branches. Eventually she said, "Well, let's try to use what we know."

"Which is that... everything always changes..." Miharu answered, scrunching up her nose.

"Which path did you go on first?"

"That one," Miharu said, pointing to the middle path. Kagome nodded.

"Alright, and which one did you come out of?"

Miharu turned herself around and out-stretched her arms momentarily, figuring which hand was right and the other her left. With her tongue poking out, she came to a decision. "That one," she answered as she twirled back around and pointed to the left path.

"Alright, let's try..." Kagome paused. "If it's random... oh, jee, let's just try the right path," Kagome mumbled. Miharu started marching off in that direction.

_You may have your help._

"Wait, let me think for one more moment, Miharu," Kagome said. Miharu made a delighted noise and marched back to Kagome.

_Your monk companion may have an idea._

_Oh?_

_Indeed. He says there is a method he can teach you. First, he says: can you find a stick or something otherwise able to be substituted for a spiritual staff?_

_Um, hold on._ Kagome turned to Miharu. "Can you get me a stick real quick? A wood one?" Kagome requested.

"Sure!" she chirped. Miharu scampered off along the side of the road and reappeared moments later with a small stick.

"Thanks, Miharu."

_It's about as long as my forearm. Does that work well enough?_ Kagome asked, examining the stick.

_Your monk says "certainly". Now he is explaining that like Shintoism, Buddhism focuses on the spirits of every object. He instructs that you focus on the spirit of the stick and coax it out._

Kagome concentrated on her task, repeating the same actions she had taken to read Miharu's purity of spirit that same morning. When she opened her eyes moments later, she observed a pink glow clinging around the branch, of which Miharu seemed to take no note.

_OK,_ done, she told Kikyou. _What next?_

_Will the stick to point you in the direction of the destination of your search, and drop it to the ground. The direction it points is the way you take, provided this method is reliable._

_Why hasn't Miroku used this before when we were looking for Naraku?_

_He says that it is inaccurate in the human world because it is not as spiritual a plane: spirits are distorted or hidden, and furthermore Naraku's barriers block such tactics. Then he mentioned something about women being more reliable in choosing directions?_

_Slap him,_ Kagome ordered as she held back a groan.

_The slayer has done as such._

Kagome pleaded that the spirit in the branch show her the way towards Inuyasha. Chewing her lip, she dropped it. It hovered in the air for a brief moment and then fell to the ground, pointing to the center path.

"Alright, Miharu... let's try the middle," Kagome suggested as she turned towards the child.

"OK!" Miharu answered brightly, following Kagome as they stepped onto the path.

_I'm coming, Inuyasha..._


	5. Chapter 05: Saving Everything for You

**BETWEEN HEAVEN AND HELL**

**Chapter 05: Saving Everything for You**

FOR SEVERAL HOURS, Kagome and Miharu ambled purposefully along a path that winded through another forest of twisted bone and rock trees, the glow that lit the otherwise dark world pulsing around them erratically. To Kagome, it seemed like the trees that surrounded them just thickened and thickened, growing denser and fuller; from time to time she wondered if she and Miharu would ever reach the edge of the forest. After a particularly loud sigh, Miharu looked up at her and smiled brightly.

"Don't worry!" she consoled cheerfully. "We won't be here much longer!"

"I'm just a little worried, Miharu... not so much about this never-ending forest as about evil spirits and such. Where are they? I would think Hell overrun with evil things."

"They just don't like to stay here very much because this part of Hell is quiet and less chaotic. That's why I stay here more often." Miharu swooped down and picked up a rock branch and ran it along the trunks of trees as they passed them, creating an eery ringing that resounded throughout the forest.

"Hmm..." Kagome murmured.

"We can stop and rest if you want," Miharu offered, hurling her stick as far as it would go into the trees. It clattered and then the world fell silent, but for their shuffling feet through the dirt.

"No, that's OK," Kagome replied, feeling a little sheepish that she was wearing down faster than a young child. "I want to keep going."

Miharu shrugged lightly. "Ohh-kaaay..." she told Kagome, as if humoring her. After a moment, Miharu's brown eyes widened. "Uh oh, get off the path!" she whispered fiercely. Kagome followed the little girl as fast as she could. They eventually found a hollow of a tree trunk and crouched inside together. Miharu pressed tightly against her, trembling, and as Kagome held her close she hardly noticed the flow of energy dripping into the girl from her own body.

Kagome peeked around the tree warily but saw only the empty path that they had left. For a brief moment, nothing but a fearful silence clung to the hemlock air; and then Kagome saw what had frightened Miharu.

An animal resembling a horse stalked steadily down the path from the direction towards which they had been travelling. It was hovering just above the snaking dirt pathway, the air solidifying under the touch of its hooves like thin sheets of ice that melted as soon as it picked its feet up again to take a step. It had three pairs of long, muscular legs that worked leisurely as it carried itself through the forest. It blew pillars of smoke--as if the air were cold--from its large nostrils and tossed its head with occasional grunts while it flicked its ears impatiently. When it opened its mouth to lick at its teeth, the tongue it used looked charred. It whickered once and flames fringed around its black lips.

Kagome and Miharu sat as still as they were capable of doing, barely breathing out of fear, until well after the creature had passed them by and was gone from sight. Not even an echo of the clipping of its hooves, which sounded like someone drumming on glass, could be heard when they finally relaxed.

"Wow, that was a close one..." Miharu said as she stood up. She straightened out her kimono while Kagome ran her fingers through her hair.

"What on earth was that?" Kagome asked, almost hissing.

"A drasil-devil, one of Sleipneir's spawn."

"Who's Sleipneir?"

"Well, that's one name for it. It has a lot of names. It's the pet of one of the Devils himself, and Sleipneir likes making such horrible creatures." Miharu shuddered. "They're so hot with hellfire that the rest of the world is cold next to it. If it catches you, it freezes your movement by stamping you once with its hooves," Miharu explained, clapping her hands for emphasis. "And then it tears your skin apart and with its teeth and licks your bones clean! It lets your soul live until you bleed yourself dry," she finished as her face contorted into an expression of fear as she shivered violently.

"That's the most terrible thing I've heard..."

"Yeah, let's go before it comes back."

Any weariness in Kagome's limbs seemed to vanish as the two girls hurried onward, occasionally taking nervous glances backwards, with the hope that the monster was not following them.

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THE FOREST ENDED more gradually than it had begun and faded into a developed city, which was crowded with huts and homes and apartment buildings. There were monsters and humans milling together in the wooden and concrete and dirt streets, dressed in clothing from every era Kagome could recognize and beyond. The mixture and saturation of every time period caught Kagome's interest, and if it had been a safer place and not in the realm of Hell, she would have been interested enough to do some exploring.

As it was, however, she and Miharu slinked close together through alleys and back roads where there were fewer and weaker creatures to attack them as they journeyed.

"Where exactly are we going?" Kagome asked Miharu after some time. The little girl seemed to know exactly in which direction they were headed, as if she had a clear destination in mind.

"We're going around the city," Miharu replied quietly. "I know someone who might be able to help us."

"Someone who might--" Kagome broke off and turned around as she heard a snarl behind them. "What are those!" she wailed as a breed of monster she had never before seen snarled and yipped at them. Miharu and Kagome broke off into a run as the creatures tailed them.

"They're rats!" Miharu shouted to Kagome.

Kagome could hear the creatures closing in on them, so she decided it was the right time to test the strength of her spiritual energy. Balling up her hands into fists and willing her power to solidify there, she turned around and punched the air. A pink shockwave of purity disintegrated one of the monsters while its fellows stopped and cautiously moved around, wondering if they should follow her or leave her be. Kagome destroyed one more and the rest scattered and drew away. Miharu and Kagome slowed to a stop.

"You're a priestess?" Miharu asked, blinking in surprise up at Kagome. They started walking again, still panting.

"Sorta," Kagome answered and grinned sheepishly. "Let's go a little faster, in case they have any friends out for revenge..."

"Yeah, let's go," Miharu agreed.

"Oh, not again!" Kagome called as she stumbled to a stop. She and Miharu reversed directions as a pair of new creatures, who had been attracted by their shouting and movement from their encounter with the rats, whirled after them. Kagome hurled pink purity towards them, but the almost humanoid beasts dodged her lances of light and laughed mockingly.

"Oh man, oh man!" Miharu chanted like a mantra, her eyes wide with fear as one of the two beasts dodged another of Kagome's attacks.

"Miharu--keep running! I'm going to distract them, alright? Go hide!" Kagome instructed. Miharu nodded and kept running while Kagome turned around, briefly struggling with the monsters until blackness overtook her senses.

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_I'M DONE FOR... I'm sorry, Inuyasha..._ Kagome thought blankly as her consciousness slowly returned. She felt too weak to open her eyes, so she laid still against something cold and rough.

_Hello? Can you hear me?_

_Kikyou?_ Kagome questioned.

_Are you alright?_

_I... I think so,_ Kagome replied. She mustered up the energy to open her eyes and was met with the sight of a dull, buttery glow from a dying florescent light over her. Around her were the bars of an iron and bone cage, just outside of which sat the two creatures. They were staring at her with an intense interest, like they expected her to do something strange and new.

One extended a hand and reached out to touch her, but was zapped by Kagome's own pinkish glow. He withdrew quickly with a screech, shaking the burned appendage and cursing as the other laughed hysterically.

_Kikyou, I've been captured,_ Kagome began seriously, anxiously watching her captors. _Right now I'm safe because my spiritual energy is protecting me, which begs the question how they got me in a cage to begin with._

_Perhaps a leash,_ Kikyou said in jest. Kagome closed her eyes grimly while she wondered why her first glimpse of Kikyou's humor appeared while she was in dire trouble. _Can you escape?_

_I'm going to have to._ Kagome began to ready a provocation for her captors when she discovered that her mouth was sealed shut. Her eyes widened and she attempted to get to her knees, only to discover that her entire body was in much the same state, as if paralyzed. Only her eyes seemed to be moving properly. Every time she tried to move the rest of her body, she felt as if a heavy weight pressed against her and pinned her to the ground.

_I can't move! Kagome told Kikyou, trying not to panic. I'm entirely subdued!_

Kikyou sighed through her mind. _Unless you plan on being rescued by a little girl, you better find some way around it._

_Yeah. Thanks,_ Kagome grumbled mentally to her only connection to Earth. She seemed to feel Kikyou's disappointment make a presence in her own mind and desperately tried to shut it out. After a moment, it quietly receded.

_The slayer wishes to help. She asks for a description of your captors._

Kagome's hopes rose suddenly. Sango always seemed to know of every demon they met; she might very well be able to provide a helpful answer to her predicament.

_OK,_ she began, carefully eyeing the monsters as they grumbled to one another. _They're humanoid in shape, save maybe each are two feet taller than average. They both have huge eyes, sort of yellow--they're slitted like a cat's. Pointed teeth, pointed ears. They're very pale, nearly green. No hair on their bodies. Their claws are dark green._

_The slayer warns you must, at all costs, not allow them to touch you. Their bodies are coated with an acid that will immediately melt your flesh down to the bone._

_For some reason, this isn't comforting me._

_Furthermore, they can also inject you with poison if you manage to evade the acid. They're weak to fire, but the slayer warns to run away from them if you light them. She says it's quite a display._

_Thanks. Any information on the binding spell?_ Kagome pressed.

_Unfortunately, the slayer says that it can only be interrupted from the outside._ Kagome closed her eyes painfully at hearing this news. _The monk suggests you pray, and the fox demon is catching on and is about to cry._

_I'll get out of here yet..._ Kagome swore. _Don't let them give up on me yet, Kikyou._ Then more quietly, in the part of her mind only she could hear, she mentally begged that Kikyou herself would not give up on her, either. She needed her unlikely comrade's support to finish her journey.

_How--_

_Oh, not again!_

_Kagome?_

Kagome did not reply to Kikyou's prompt. Instead, she stared hard at a human woman who entered the room, carrying a slain demon in her arms. She cast the corpse down to the floor. In response, Kagome's captors began spitting up acid in anger; where it landed on the dead demon, the skin bubbled away like sea foam and exposed bone. Kagome felt an inevitable pang of fear.

The human woman took out a short sword that was surrounded by a pale orange flame. Before the monsters were able to charge at her, the woman had already hurled a throwing knife into the first demon and had expertly dodged a spout of poison from the other's mouth. Kagome felt the invisible hold around her body slacken into nothing. As if stepping free of a loosened rope, she rose to her full height inside the cage and launched a blast of spiritual energy at the remaining demon.

When the human girl turned to face her, Kagome subconsciously stepped backwards, pressing herself against the far side of the cage. The woman stepped slowly towards her, still holding the flame-licked sword. With a poison mask covering her nose and mouth and her eyes hooded by her bangs, it was impossible for Kagome to read the woman's emotions.

_Two demons down..._ Kagome informed Kikyou distractedly. _And one strange human woman to go..._

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Author's Notes: Not all the reviews are showing up. :( But thank you, everyone, anyway! Maybe they'll show up within a few days. I'm a bit surprised I've gotten any. I started this fanfiction a few weeks ago as sort of a stress relief/as a warm up for my other fanfictions. I'm not complaining, though! You guys are the greatest.

_XOXO,_  
Kyubi Kyebu


	6. Chapter 06: In Case You Come Back Home

**BETWEEN HEAVEN AND HELL**

**Chapter 06: In Case You Come Back Home**

"ARE YOU KAGOME?" the woman asked almost listlessly, her voice sounding stuffy and mechanic due to being filtered through her poison mask. Kagome briefly wondered if she was from Sango's tribe, but the mask the strange woman was wearing was designed much differently and less efficiently.

"Yes," Kagome squeaked. Intimidated by her scrutiny, Kagome fidgeted from behind the bars of her cage while the woman observed her steadily for several moments.

"Do not fear me... I am here for your rescue," the woman finally continued with her tinny voice.

"... Huh? My rescue?" Kagome repeated.

"Miharu sought me out. In Hell, whatever accidentals there are try to help each other out, keep an eye on one another. None of us belong here, and for our cleaner souls we're a little more open prey--so we kind of have a network together. We don't usually stay in groups, however. I am here because you are an accidental, and furthermore Miharu's savior tonight. Are you ready to go?" she explained carefully, ending almost carelessly on the question.

"Really? Thank you!" Kagome said gratefully and then loosed a relieved sigh, remembering Miharu's claim to know someone nearby who would be able to help them--undoubtedly, this woman who stood opposite the cage wall from her was Miharu's friend.

"Don't mention it," the woman responded, kicking in the side of the cage powerfully. "But let's get out of here fast. We don't have time to waste."

"Miharu is OK now, right?" Kagome asked as the woman walked carefully to the other end of the room, peeking out of the doorway. Kagome waited for instructions behind her.

"Yes, she is at my home. Alright, follow me carefully. We must stay hidden to avoid any unwanted attention."

_Kagome?_

_I'm just fine, Kikyou,_ Kagome replied to the prompt. _I'm out of there and I have the help of a grown woman now... and she looks like a well-prepared fighter._

_You really are one lucky girl. My faith has been restored... slightly._

_Well, thank you._

"I'm following," Kagome whispered as she and the woman shuffled against the wall. Kagome examined the hallway that they had come out of the room into; it appeared that they were in an apartment building. They were walking down a long, concrete hallway with numerous doors, all spaced out irregularly from one another and embossed with peeling, gold-painted numbers that were in the wrong order. It would be a deadly place to be trapped if the rooms were locked, or even if they were--there were no side passages to run into, nowhere to escape.

Overhead, the lights were dim and spluttering, which gave the girls their only protection: a swath of fluttering shadows scratched out along the cement.

Kagome's muscles were tense as she warily followed the woman before her, watching as she picked out a stairwell and led them down the stairs. They spiralled for awhile, took a few stairs up, and then a few more down, and after several more hallways filled with doors they came out at the back of the building. Once out of the apartment complex, they scuttled along a dirt alleyway flanking a stretch of crudely built cottages.

After what seemed like hours to Kagome, the girls reached a small outlet that turned into the forest. About a mile away from the city, the journey of which had gone faster and smoother since there had been less sneaking involved,they came upon a small hut. They entered its light, gladly escaping the nighttime that was growing thick over the sky.

Upon seeing Kagome, Miharu jumped up excitedly from the floor where she had been sitting and waiting for them. She clapped her hands happily while the woman removed her poison mask entirely and left it on a countertop. Kagome caught sight of a man sleeping in the corner.

"Oh, you did it! You really did it!" Miharu exclaimed jubilantly, hardly able to contain her happiness. "You did it!"

The woman smiled. "Of course I did, sweetheart. Now I suggest we all get some sleep."

"Um..." Kagome started a little anxiously.

"Yes?" the woman asked, not facing her as she began folding back the blankets of a pallet.

"I don't mean to sound rude, but do you have a name?"

She blinked. "It must have slipped my mind. I'm Amaya, and this is my companion Taro," she replied as she indicated the sleeping man.

"Thanks again, Amaya. Nice to meet you... er, both," Kagome said, smiling sheepishly at Taro while he snored.

"It was nothing. In the morning, we'll trade stories." Amaya settled into her pallet and indicated a slightly similar one across the room for Kagome to use. Miharu was already tucked in and watching everyone move around her, feeling temporarily safe.

"Night!" Kagome called out as she crawled under her quilts.

"Night, night!" Miharu added loudly, closing her eyes and almost instantly falling asleep.

"Good night," Amaya answered them both.

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KAGOME FOUND THAT she slept well among the company of someone who was armed and knew how to slay devils and demons and anything else that might attack them while they slumbered, and she was grateful to sleep in the comfort of a bed. However, she still felt tired as she woke up the next morning--a result she blamed on a mix of giving away her life energy to Miharu and using up her spiritual energy, perhaps in conjunction with the natural draining of her energy caused by simply being in Hell. Despite, she felt better in the morning than she had the previous night, and her spirits were renewed. She was ready to begin her search again.

"Morning," Amaya said quietly when she realized that Kagome was awake. Both Miharu and Taro were still soundly sleeping, and Amaya was cleaning off her flame-shrouded sword.

"G'morning," Kagome replied sleepily, smiling lightly.

"Sleep well?" she continued. Kagome nodded in response. "I don't mean to rush you, but I know you and Miharu will be heading out early this morning. Miharu told me you were looking for someone, but that's really all she said--so let's go ahead and swap stories now. It'll be easier while the other two are still asleep."

"Oh--of course. I'll start from the beginning," Kagome responded before she launched into an explanation of what she was doing in Hell and why she was here. As Kagome finished up her tale, Amaya leaned against the back of the hut wall and closed her eyes, thinking. She had long ago finished cleaning her sword and now occupied one hand briefly by brushing back a stray strand of hair from her face.

She opened her eyes. "I would like to accompany you, if that is acceptable."

"Of course it is--I would be honored and extremely grateful if you joined us. We'd be much safer, and we can all get out of this terrible place."

Amaya smiled bittersweetly. "I still haven't told you my story yet, have I?" Kagome indicated for her to continue when she was ready. Amaya sighed and her eyes looked at a spot on the wall above Kagome's shoulder. "Taro and I were once merchants. Of course, being a merchant meant we were always travelling, and as a result we encountered demons quite frequently. Most traders were good fighters simply from experience, and Taro and I were not exceptions--but we weren't real spiritual people, and so when we accepted in a fellow traveller one night we had no idea we were inviting in a possessed priest. We awoke in Hell the next morning, along with the rest of the camp."

"That's horrible!" Kagome declared meaningfully. Amaya turned her head away as a look of old sadness overcame her features.

"Only Taro and I remain. The others have since had their souls shattered." Kagome swallowed thickly. "But at least we will be able to make new lives for ourselves once we are free from this place."

Kagome nodded lightly as Miharu began to stir.

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"ALRIGHT, AMAYA, SINCE you're now the brains of this operation... where are we going?" Kagome asked her new companion as they walked through another forest. Kagome jested once about the amount of trees in Hell--had so many of them misbehaved during life? Amaya said the trees had never been real on Earth, and that they were products merely of the plane of Hell.

"You said your friend was a half-demon--" Amaya started, interrupted as Taro grunted. She cleared her throat and started again, "And he is also new here, so it's my guess that he's somewhere near the Devil's Guillotine."

"Devil's Guillotine?" Kagome repeated, both curious and slightly afraid.

Taro answered her this time. "Yeah, it's typically where the more powerful devils and the Council of Devils--who don't really do anything except blow people up from time to time, tempt mortals, and release devils into the human world, mind you--queue up for entertainment. When devils get bored torturing the living, they torture each other, basically... or if they can convince a Councilmember, they'll important human beings for fun." Taro looked disgusted briefly. "Half-demons typically like to stir up trouble around there, since other half-demons are usually a huge target of aggression and assault," Taro finished.

"So even in Hell, they're given a hard time and giving a hard time?" Kagome asked.

"Mm-hmm," Taro confirmed, not really sounding apologetic about it.

"It will be dangerous for us when we get there," Amaya warned seriously as she chopped a low-hanging bone branch from a tree with her sword, "since, as Taro pointed out, this is where the big guys settle. This is where the devils who are strong enough to open portals and go to Earth live. It's something of a fortress--there's a foreign-style castle in the middle surrounded by a stone wall. Within the walls are whatever torture devices the Council is in the mood for using at the time."

"So Inuyasha's going to be in here, huh?" Kagome muttered.

"'Fraid so," Taro said, stumbling over a root. The root sunk immediately back into the gray soil, like a chastised child bowing its head, as Taro turned around and shook a fist at it. Kagome remained silent afterwards, simply listening to their footfalls against the foliage and Miharu's hums as the little girl trailed her.

Eventually, after the morning was passed by walking, the forest ended and an expansive field again. From the edge of the forest, Kagome and her new companions observed it. The long blades of gray and brown grass whipped in a strong wind that did not touch the trees at all; and in spots Kagome could see that the grass rippled, as if something was moving below the discolored growth and disturbed it. At the very edge, underneath the wine-colored sky, a lone castle and its fortress loomed up, like a tiny mountain in the distance.

Kagome, excited as well as anxious, took a step forward before yelping and immediately jumping back from the waist-high grass. A twisting river of blood ran down her bare leg, no wider than a vein and very thin.

"Oww, that hurt," she moaned as she wiped it away. "Was that the grass?"

"Yes. It will be unfortunate for you and Miharu who are donning skirts," Amaya said, looking at Taro from the corner of her eye.

He caught the look. "I'm not carrying them, Ama," he said, as if reading her mind. Kagome barely kept from smiling in response--Inuyasha always seemed to recognize when she was scheming, too.

"Of course you won't carry them," she said. "I will carry Miharu, you need only carry Kagome," Amaya added, re-sweeping her hair up into a fresh ponytail. She scooped Miharu up in her arms while the child let out a delighted yip--she loved to be carried.

"Hell no," Taro insisted, shaking his head resolutely.

"Taro, do you want out of Hell or not?" Amaya asked the man in a dangerous tone.

"He can't carry me," Kagome agreed.

"This is no time to be prudish. He will have to, unless you want your legs completely chafed up."

Kagome shook her head. "I mean, if he carries me, then all my life energy will be drained away and we'll all be stuck here for good. I'm still living, remember?"

Amaya shifted Miharu to her other hip and looked at the ground, chewing her lip thoughtfully. She sighed and put Miharu back on the ground.

"I suppose your skirt would be too small for me, so we cannot trade..." she said quietly. "Well, here, this will help some at least." Amaya untied the thin, metal shin guards that kept her pants tight around her legs. She moved them to Kagome's thighs and tied them tightly. "Your socks should keep your skin fairly safe for awhile, until the fabric is worn away; but the back of your thighs, I am afraid, will be cut up by the time we cross the field. However, I cannot think of anything else."

"Thanks..." Kagome replied anxiously, warily looking out over the sprawling yellow and brown grass. It seemed to go on eternally both to the left and the right, just as the mountains had seemed to do, so there was no obvious way around it.

"Let's just get going," Taro said, much happier now that he did not have to carry any girls across the grass. Amaya shook her head and scooped up Miharu again, and the small group stepped off into the grass.

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"OW! OW! OUCH!" Kagome mumbled with every step and with every breath of the breeze flowing through the field. The backs of her legs burned, as if on fire, and she could feel her own blood soaking the threads of her socks (her mother would be upset when she saw them), and even several places along her arms and stomach had been nicked and grown swollen.

And there was no pause to the new cuts being lanced across her body--because the wind blew continuously, even if she paused to rest she was still hurt by the grass. Amaya had tried to cut the grass with her sword as they had gone, but the blades just grew up again as fast as they were cut. Kagome attempted to use her spiritual power, but the pink light just slipped in and out of the blades like a breeze until it faded and died.

A small part of Kagome simply wanted to give up.

"Oww! Stupid grass!" she moaned.

"Hush, we're almost there," Taro ordered.

"How about _you_ walk back in a skirt..." she mumbled irritably. "And we're only half-way through the field."

Kagome was readying to launch into a full-blown tirade about how much she intensely hated Hell when she caught sight of a circular clearing ahead and to the left. Kagome grinned brightly and took off at a sprint towards it, ignoring Amaya's desperate calls. She lifted her foot and pressed it down into the shorn earth.

In that moment, a dizziness swam over her and, with a tremendous slam and a sound like a thunder-clap, she was standing and feeling extraordinary disoriented. She blinked and looked around, realizing she was no longer in the middle of the field at all...

... She was back at the forest's edge, as if she had never stepped foot beyond the first blade of razor-sharp grass.

Kagome could not help it when tears began to fall down her face. She only wailed louder when she realized she could not collapse to the ground, because her legs felt so raw and pained.

One thought crossed her mind at that moment. When she found him, Kagome was going to give Inuyasha one _hell_ of a "sit".

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Author's Notes: Sorry this fic has such sporadic updates... I make all this up as I go with absolutely no plan, so I just write when I have inspiration. Oh yeah, thanks, **Xaenthe**, with the help about reviews! Now I can see everyone's lovely comments. (:

XOXO,  
Kyebu


	7. Chapter 07: Space in My Heart

**BETWEEN HEAVEN AND HELL**

**Chapter 07: The Space in My Heart**

AFTER KAGOME CRIED--standing up and feeling rather foolish as she wiped hot tears away from her eyes and cheeks--for several minutes, Taro popped into existence next to her, grumbling to himself.

"Stop crying, Amaya had a bright idea," he said dryly with a heavy sigh, obviously upset with the hours of lost work. Grunting as Kagome wiped away the last of her frustrated tears, he flicked her shoulder lightly. "Does your life energy get used up if you have something between you and a dead person? Like, if I were to take off my shirt and wrap you in it," he explained while rolling his eyes, "would it still drain your life?"

"I... I don't know," Kagome replied as she sniffled. "It's not like I've ever tried it."

He pulled off his haori and shirt and wound them around Kagome, while she complained as he carelessly touched the bleeding cuts on her legs. He hauled her up into his arms.

"OK?" he asked indifferently.

"Yeah, it's draining me still, but only a little bit," Kagome answered. "Why didn't Amaya think of this first?" she asked with a weary sigh.

"Because it would've been too easy," Taro said in a tone that ended the conversation as he stepped back into the field. He took a pace a good deal faster than what they had all been walking before, and any attempt of conversation on Kagome's part was stopped almost abruptly. So instead of trying to converse with Taro, Kagome eventually settled nervously into his arms and decided to talk with Kikyou.

_Hi, Kikyou,_ Kagome greeted the priestess somberly.

_Hello. How are you faring?_

_I'm OK, I'm kind of beat up but I'll live. I can't wait to come home._

_Indeed,_ Kikyou answered doubtlessly. _How is the journey itself going?_

_It can't take too much longer,_ Kagome told her. _We're pretty sure we know where Inuyasha is, and we're not all that far away._

_Cheering news._

A quiet lapsed with nothing but the sounds of Taro's labored breathing and the whimpering wind moving through the grass. _So,_ Kagome began again. _How is everyone else?_

_Currently? The little fox demon is asleep, the slayer is pulverizing the monk again, and the fire-cat seems to be the only sensible companion of yours._

Kagome laughed mentally. It was a difficult task to keep from giggling at Kikyou's ironically stoic comment, but she did not wish for Taro to think her insane or hysterical for laughing at what seemed like nothing, since he did not know of Kagome's connection to Kikyou. When no conversation with the priestess continued, Kagome eventually fell asleep.

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KAGOME WOKE ABRUPTLY when Taro dropped her painfully to the ground, letting off a sudden yelp of surprise and pain. She looked up and glared briefly at Taro who was now pulling his shirts back on. Kagome sighed and stood up, doing her best to move slowly so that she was careful of her sensitive legs.

"Where are we?" she asked no one in particular. She scanned their new surroundings. The castle still seemed no closer to them than it had been earlier, when they had first stepped foot into the field, despite that the grass was now waving softly behind them. They were standing on a bar of ashen gray dirt that seemed like a shoreline between the field behind them and what lay before them. Barring them from the castle now was a sprawling scape of gray and white sand. Dunes and pits rippled the desert, and sometimes a faint wind brushed across it and moved the sand.

Thank goodness there's no grass... Kagome thought to herself. The only life at all that she could see was a single tree, rising out from the sand in what Kagome assumed must be around the center of the desert. There was little to compare it to, but for the fuzzied details of the branches and the horizon bordering the sky, but it looked tall--maybe deceptively so. It had a thick, knotted trunk with the bowed leaves of a willow, which swept the ground and fluttered silver-green in the calm breeze, and if she squinted she could make out blossoms falling from the branches and pale buds, like plum blossoms.

After her recent experience, Kagome decided she would wait for one of the others to step into the desert first. Instead, she turned around to look at the others.

"We rest here," Amaya said, ignoring Kagome's previous question. Kagome noticed that Miharu was already asleep and Taro was attempting to make himself comfortable in the gray dirt. Kagome carefully removed Amaya's shinguards from her legs, sucking in a sharp breath as she rubbed at the blisters that had formed. Kagome was pleased to find that the bleeding had completely stopped, but the wounds were still opened and just the gentle brush of dirt across them made her legs sting.

Kagome handed the shinguards back to Amaya almost listlessly and then pulled off her shoes and socks. The socks were ripped and covered in blood, so she discarded them entirely so that they would not ruin her school shoes.

"I'm sorry we have nothing with which to treat your wounds," Amaya said nonchalantly as Kagome pulled her loafers back on.

"I'll just patch my legs up when we get back." _Considering my legs still work well enough to get me back,_ she added to herself.

"Try to rest. After the desert, we have no knowledge of what awaits us, and we best be prepared."

Kagome just nodded with a sigh before trying to find some comfort lying on her side.

"Oh, yeah," she said suddenly, looking at Amaya. "Since Taro just took some of my life, he's corporeal again. He can't use any weapons while he's corporeal." Amaya nodded, understanding.

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THE GROUP SLEPT through the remainder of the evening and perhaps what would have been the night as well, if the sun would set and rise, for when Kagome awoke again to Miharu's giggling, the sky was still the same old, reddish-white color of wine it had been when they first came to the field. Maybe the color was not caused by a sun at all, as she could not spot the orb anywhere in the sky. With a shrug, Kagome turned to watch Miharu tell Taro something. He was smiling patiently at the child, and Kagome sighed to herself. Taro seemed to have so much patience for Amaya and Miharu, but none for her.

"So, what kind of dangers are we facing in the desert?" Kagome asked.

"I am not quite certain," Amaya responded. "I have never been as far as to cross the desert. We will just have to go on, I suppose, and we'll do our best to ignore that tree."

"Why?" Kagome asked curiously.

"Haven't you learned anything yet?" Taro snapped, moving to Amaya's side. "Don't you remember what happened last time? We're going to ignore it. It's my guess that by the time we get close to the tree, we'll be hot and tired and in need of shade, and that tree'll be the only thing offering. Once we step underneath the shade..."

"Boom, we're right back at the beginning--maybe back at the forest," Amaya finished. "And I am sure you really do not wish to repeat the field for a third time, Kagome."

"Alright," Kagome said with a sigh. "I get it."

"How long will it take 'til we're there?" Miharu asked, blinking up at Amaya innocently.

"I am not sure," the older girl answered.

"How dangerous is it?" Miharu continued cheerfully.

"I am not sure," Amaya repeated.

"Can we go now?" Miharu asked.

"Yes." Amaya cautiously put one foot into the desert with everyone else gathered behind her, watching intently. When nothing seemed to happen, she launched forward into an even pace. Kagome immediately followed and was swallowed up by a cold, icy feeling that penetrated not only her clothes, but which seemed to ail her mind. Up above, the sky was a deep, sapphire blue with dark purple bands flanked across it. The light breeze was bitter, cold, and dry, and carried a feeling of loss on it. The group seemed to have leaped into a new world, and, just as suddenly, they seemed to take a leap nearer the castle; it was much closer now, to Kagome's delight.

Kagome exhaled sharply and wrapped her arms around herself tightly both for the warmth and comfort. She trotted after Amaya as the others were doing.

"Gee, Taro, are you sure that we need any shade?" Kagome asked him teasingly. Taro just waved his hand, dismissing her entirely, and turned to Miharu again. "Why do you hate me, anyway?" Kagome asked.

"He doesn't hate you, Kagome," Amaya stated admonishingly as Taro loosed an almost demonic growl and sprinted ahead of the rest of them, keeping twenty or so feet ahead of the rest of the group until he was soon joined by Miharu, who continued telling him the tale she had begun.

"He sure fooled me..." Kagome murmured as she watched him smile patiently, only slightly annoyed, at Miharu.

"He's just a little... disgusted... by you," Amaya corrected. Kagome raised her eyebrow at Amaya.

"Somehow, that doesn't comfort me much," she said dryly.

"It isn't your fault. His wife, Mira, was killed by a demon and his daughter was killed by a halfling, and he's angry with himself for trading his pride by rescuing a half-demon in order to return to the world of the living. He is also disgusted by you for being so devoted to a half-demon," Amaya explained and then in a lower voice added, "You also look a great deal like his daughter did. She was younger than you were, but she was also rare with her blue eyes."

"Oh..." Kagome responded in understanding, looking at their companion ahead of them sadly. "I had no idea... That's terrible." Amaya nodded. After a moment, Kagome smiled sheepishly and said, "I just thought you were his wife."

Amaya laughed abruptly, a sound that startled Kagome. Amaya had not laughed since the two women had met.

"Oh, no," Amaya said, her tone more emotional than Kagome had ever heard it. "Oh, no. That man hasn't a romantic thought left in his head, so devoted is he to Mira."

"Are you sure? He's so gentle and protective of you and Miharu. If I didn't know any better, I'd think you three were a family," Kagome insisted, carefully observing the wistful look on the face of her hardened companion. Amaya seemed to be coming apart in front of her.

She regained her composure and looked forward, staring at the castle. "Kagome, for whom have you come to Hell?"

"Like I told you before... my friend, Inuyasha," Kagome replied, giving Amaya a quizzical look.

"And you love him deeply, do you not?"

"Yeah, I guess..." Kagome mumbled, cheeks burning.

"And did you not tell me, back at my hut, that you went to find the aid of a woman who has even hated you in the past, of whom are you a reincarnation, and also who has been romantically involved with Inuyasha?" Amaya asked tonelessly.

"Yes..."

"And did you not say that he was still devoted to this woman, even after years of travel with you? After he has been your guardian, your protector? Even after so much time away from her?" Amaya continued.

"Yeah..." Kagome answered, beginning to see Amaya's point.

"If you truly believe he is so devoted to this other woman, then know I am in a situation not much different from yours, Kagome. I am sure many people have mistaken you for Inuyasha's wife or lover or otherwise. I am sure they have told you how gentle he is with only you, so protective of you, so careful with you--that you are his treasure."

"I suppose so," Kagome responded, remembering how many time she had, indeed, been mistaken for Inuyasha's "woman" over the past three years. Amaya nodded while Kagome sighed sadly and let the cold wind bring morose memories and thoughts; the look on Inuyasha's face when he was speaking of Kikyou, the way he would do anything for the priestess, how he would always leave her for Kikyou and how she always let him.

_Is something wrong?_ Kikyou interrupted her thoughts.

_No, _Kagome responded, slightly puzzled. _Why do you ask?_

_I am being over-ridden by waves of your sorrow, girl._

_It's nothing,_ Kagome told her. _It's nothing._ Kikyou said no more. Kagome sighed and shivered as the cold wind blew.

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WHEN KAGOME HAD first followed Amaya into the desert, she had assumed that the bitter cold and dryness of the air would be the trouble of the plane; but after hours of walking, however, Kagome had come to decide that there was something malicious and sad in the desert winds, and that it wasn't just the cold that made her feel so unhappy. Sorrow came rolling in with the breeze, brushing over them like the grains of sand, so intense that sometimes she just wished to curl up and sleep the rest of her life away. She saw in the faces of her comrades the images of her own sad thoughts reflected--even in Miharu's, who occasionally whimpered as if reliving a terrible nightmare. Kagome wondered if she was seeing the last day of her life; the expressions on her parents' faces as their daughter was banished into Hell, the feel of a monster's claws wrapped around her. She shuddered.

Kagome looked towards the tree, which was growing closer and now seemed fuller and larger.

In the barren, lifeless desert, ringed with its deep, chilling cold, with the night eternally heavy in the sky, the tree seemed like a last light, a last hope. The willow branches hung in the night air with a sort of subtle glow in the green-silver leaves, and it looked so safe, warm, and sheltered; the blooms were soft and colorful and she felt that if she could only touch them, or even just see them closer, or maybe even hold just one small flower in her hand, she would be happy again. If she could reach out and touch that tree, even if she was frozen forever or her spirit shattered, she felt it just wouldn't matter... it was not worth the effort to keep on going.


	8. Chapter 08: Everything We Shared

**BETWEEN HEAVEN AND HELL**

**Chapter 08: Everything We Shared**

"CAN WE PLEASE go pick some of the flowers?" Miharu begged, tugging on Amaya's sleeve mercilessly.

"No," Amaya answered solidly. Before she could stop herself, Kagome shot the older girl something of a weak glare. She quickly shook it away. She was grateful that Amaya, at least, was strong enough to keep them all walking away from the tree. Kagome cast one last longing look behind her towards the tree's waving branches before she heaved a sigh, gathered her resolve, and followed Amaya again.

"This is stupid!" Miharu whined petulantly as her eyes filled with heavy tears. "It doesn't even matter! Once we get there, we'll only get caught, anyway! So why can't we take a break?"

"Stop, Miharu," Amaya commanded. To Kagome, Amaya's voice seemed strained and tired--she was trying her hardest to keep everyone moving, but she herself could not deny that she wished to stop as well, only further marked by the longing glance she sent towards the tree as they continued to walk further from it.

"The sooner we get out of here, the better," Kagome added in an attempt to help Amaya.

"This is all your fault!" Miharu squealed, pointing an accusing finger at Kagome.

"You could have stayed behind," Taro told her pointedly, startling Kagome out of being upset. Taro had never come to her defense before.

"All alone?" Miharu retaliated, fixing him with an incredulous look.

"That way we wouldn't have to listen to your caterwauling." Kagome sighed and shook her head. She focused on the castle looming in the distance, a dank fang rising up from the horizon. Its image was clean-cut and clear as a shadow stretching upwards.

"Listen," Amaya began sternly, addressing them all. "I am telling you all to hush... now. By arguing with one another and by complaining, you are making this harder than it already is. Look, we're more than half-way through the desert. We have made it this far."

"But I'm going to freeze to death!" Miharu insisted, not really minding anything that Amaya had aid. "And I'm tired and I feel icky!"

"We know, Miharu," Amaya replied indifferently. "We all feel the same way. Please be quiet."

Miharu wasn't finished with her tirade. "Sand keeps getting in my eyes! The wind is making scary noises! It's dark and it's late and I want my Mama, damn it!" Miharu squealed. Kagome sent the small girl a horrified look while Taro clapped his hands over his ears to block out Miharu's wailing.

"Naughty language!" Amaya scolded. "If we stop and take a break, we'll never get out of here. We must press forward."

"I don't caa-hare-hare!" Miharu sobbed, openly crying. Kagome moaned quietly and imitated Taro's action by covering her own ears. She normally had a great deal of patience (for children, at least), but Miharu was pushing them all to the edge.

"Oh, Miharu!" Kagome exclaimed as Miharu cried louder when no one responded to her. "Miharu, please. We're nearly out of the desert. If you calm down, you'll feel better."

"I don't want to!" Miharu screeched. Kagome sighed and resigned herself to finding the best way to plug her ears, attempting to block out Miharu for the remainder of the trip. When they finally reached the last stretch of the journey, and Kagome could again see a bar of gray dirt that overtook the sand, she put on a sprint to reach it. Miharu was quick to follow as Amaya and Taro trotted up behind them.

Kagome hummed pleasantly as they left the desert behind. Immediately, a wash of warm, comforting breeze slipped through the place where they stood, carrying out most of the depressive mood and thoughts--although traces still lingered. Kagome turned to take sight of the next trial that awaited them and her brow immediately furrowed.

"What?" she asked, looking on in disbelief. "How are we supposed to cross something with no ground?"

"We rest here," Amaya informed her. "We will tackled that task when we wake." Kagome sighed and cast a long, searching look around the scape that awaited them. A purple and black stretch of what looked like nothing but color loomed on before them, littered with pale white balls of firelight sprinkled everywhere; some much larger than others and flared like stars, some much more distant and no more than needle points in the distance. It reminded Kagome somewhat of a photograph of deep space taken by a satellite, except the lights scattered before her twinkled and popped out rather than stood still, and in places the purple-black bumped suddenly and then smoothed, like something crawling beneath a blanket. The castle now seemed like a distant flicker.

Kagome carefully sat down and observed the state of her legs while her companions dropped off into sleep. The small cuts had begun to scab, and she wondered if they would leave scars. The cuts themselves were shallow, but they had not been cleaned or treated. She sighed. _If they do leave scars,_ she told herself, _I'll just show them to Inuyasha any time I want to come home and take a bath..._

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"I'M SORRY I blamed you, Kagome," Miharu said as she looked down at her feet. Amaya, behind her, bustled around to assure herself that they were all prepared to take on the next task.

"It's OK, Miharu," Kagome insisted. "It is kind of my fault you've been dragged way out here, and I wasn't exactly nice, either. So don't worry about it." Kagome smiled brightly at the younger girl, despite still feeling a little sad as well as tired. "Let's just get going so we can get out of here as soon as possible."

"Yes, let's," Amaya agreed as she fixed her ponytail. They wandered together to the edge of the new scape and stared out at the blackness for a moment.

"What if we fall?" Kagome asked.

"Put one foot through and see," Taro suggested as he shrugged his shoulders.

"Me?" Kagome replied, turning around to face him.

"Of course. You're the one who wants to rescue this boy, right?" Taro explained in an off-hand voice. Kagome sighed.

"Alright, you have a point. But if I die, you'll be stuck here," Kagome grumbled, tentatively putting one foot out into the darkness. It landed and sent a jolt through her leg, as if connecting hard with some invisible roadway. When nothing else happened to her, Kagome cautiously pulled her second foot in and stood still for a moment, shaking away the momentary disorientation as the castle seemed to take a sudden leap at her. She was glad to see how much closer it was, now that they had finished their trek through the desert. While Kagome glanced around nervously, she was joined slowly by her companions.

"I wonder..." Kagome murmured. "What is the catch?"

Amaya nodded in agreement. "Let's go quickly as possible and maybe we won't find out."

"Hah," Taro grunted sarcastically, but they all pushed onward at a deliberate, fast walk.

While they were glancing around anxiously, waiting for something to happen, the purple-black welted into a thick bubble where the group stood and let out a tremendous clap like thunder. Kagome's vision went bright white and she could faintly smell something like burned hair. She blinked for a moment and rubbed at her eyes and, realizing she was both alone and the source of the burned hair smell, felt a moment of worry overtake her. Trying not to panic, Kagome surveyed the entire area.

"Miharu? Taro? Amaya?" she called out, spinning on her heel. A second welt of purple-black formed where she stood, and with another slam she was sent somewhere else entirely. Calming herself in the same no-nonsense, almost inhuman way that she did during a demon fight, the located the castle and took off at a sprint after it. Lightening-fast, she had decided that the best plan of action was to run towards it--run to avoid the welts, and towards the castle in the hopes that the others were all doing the same.

For a long time she ran on like that, barely avoiding the scattered welts and always with the castle in focus. Soon she was panting and running out of breath, but she continued to surge forward.

She slowed and cried out when she felt herself falling through the nothingness. Whatever barrier had served as the ground just moments before went rapidly sinking away beneath her feet, pulling her down with it like a deep, grasping undertow. With a yelp, she put on a desperate burst of speed to avoid falling. After struggling momentarily, she was hit again by one of the welts. When she landed, she found herself on sturdy ground once more. Winded but more desperate than before, Kagome continued running on.

Abruptly, Kagome stopped her movement and gaped at a new sight before her. Her heart nearly stopped. As quickly as she had stopped, she started running again--much faster than she had been going before, at a speed of which she did not know herself capable, exhaustion and worry unable to touch her as she flew across the nothingness.

There was Inuyasha.

"Inuyasha!" she called in a voice she could barely control. "Inuyasha!"

In the moment that she first saw him, her logic fled. She never wondered why he did not turn to face her, as he went on walking as if he could not hear her. She never wondered about the Shikon shards. She never wondered at meeting him here, in this plane, and now. She just pumped her legs against the nothingness as if as she could, stretching out her arm until her fingers were only centimeters from his shoulder.

A thread of bright, blinding yellow light cut through Inuyasha. He crumbled to nothing.

Kagome stood still, her arm still outstretched and her lips parted.

His ashes blew across the nothingness. Kagome whimpered. He was gone now, scattered away into somewhere else.

"Inu... Inu..." Kagome looked up at who had been responsible for the light that had destroyed Inuyasha, and she saw a boy a year or two older than herself, re-sheathing a strange and crooked sword. "You... you..."

"A thank you would suffice," he said breezily.

"But... you just destroyed Inuyasha!" she screamed.

"We don't have time for this," the boy said. Before Kagome could react, the boy lunged at her, gripped her around the waste, and hauled her over his shoulder like a sack.

"Let me down, you heartless jerk!" Kagome yelled at him, beating his back. She did not have to repeat the order.

"Fuck!" he swore, dropping Kagome as if he had been burned. "You're still fucking alive!" Kagome looked up at him and glared through watery eyes with unconcealed hatred as the boy rubbed his wrists, hissing through his teeth. He murmured, "I can't believe I'm doing this." He again grabbed Kagome and slung her over his shoulder. She resumed screeching and crying, hitting him with her fists while he leaped onward and avoided the welts of the purple-black. Kagome could feel her life being rapidly sapped away from her body.

When Kagome had tired herself and could only hang limply from his shoulder, crying slowly and silently, they reached the edge of the plane. He dumped her mercilessly on the ground next to Amaya, who had a bad burn across her face that sealed one of her eyes shut completely. Taro, looking guilty and in an extremely bad mood, was crouched down beside his blind companion while Miharu was pounding around full of fear and anger.

"You bastard!" Kagome called, standing up once more and punching the boy in the chest. He caught her fist before it could make contact with him. He threw it back at her and Kagome covered her face with her hands, sobbing.

"Do you honestly believe I killed your boyfriend back there?" the boy asked incredulously.

"It was a fine imitation of my _friend _if it wasn't him," Kagome whimpered, heart hurting.

"I fucking hate the living," the boy swore.

"Of course you do, you're dead," Kagome snapped bitterly, trying to wipe the tears from her eyes.

"I did not kill your _friend,"_ he replied mockingly. "Don't you get it? That was a trap. The moment you touched that fine imitation, you would have ended up like--or worse than--Amaya here."

"Kagome, just calm down," Taro ordered. "Amaya's in no condition to listen to your ranting."

Kagome waved him off, retreated from the others, and slammed herself down to the ground while ignoring the torn scabs that were now freshly bleeding again. The boy just rolled his eyes and turned to Amaya who, despite her wound, seemed to remain the calmest.

"Thank you again, Susumu," Amaya said nonchalantly.

"You didn't tell me that girl was still fucking _alive,_ Ama," he growled.

"I did not think it would batter to you so much," she responded evenly, shooing away Taro's hands as he attempted to place one consolingly on her shoulder.

Susumu growled. "Unlike you fucking freaks, I'm _supposed _to be in Hell. And unlike the damn devils, I don't eat living things. Touching her is as good as being burned!"

"Then you don't have to touch me again!" Kagome yelled from her place ten feet away from the group, sitting in the gray dirt as she wiped her eyes dry. "Hell is the worst place I've ever been!" She knew her statement was rhetorical, but she wanted to complain--at least for one moment.

"No shit! What gave you that idea?" Susumu called back anyway.

"Would you just shut up?" Kagome snapped at him. "I'm sick and tired of you already! And you too, Taro!" Kagome yelled as the other boy opened his mouth to order her to be quiet. "You don't have to alienate me just because I'm helping a half-demon! I'm--"

"Whoa whoa! Hold up!" Susumu called as Taro's eyes flashed angrily. "You're helping a half-demon?"

"What of it?" Kagome snarled savagely. "Didn't you see when you so heroically _saved_ me earlier?"

"No, I didn't--to me it was just a shadow. I just assumed he was your boyfriend from the way you looked at me. But really! A half-demon? That's awesome! Are you really in love with a half-demon?" Kagome blinked, taken by surprise at the sudden change in attitude. Taro growled at Susumu, who replied by flashing a lopsided grin at Kagome and flicking Taro off. Taro gave him a puzzled look.

And then Kagome suddenly realized that Susumu was the first modern person she had met in Hell.

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Author's Notes: Thanks for the support, everyone! **Xaenthe**, no worries, I never put up author's notes (except on the bottom of chapters)! I can just be a fast writer when the inspiration strikes. Sometimes I write twenty pages a day, sometimes I write five pages a month. All depends I suppose. (:

XOXO,  
Kyubi Kyebu


	9. Chapter 09: Smiles & Souls

**BETWEEN HEAVEN AND HELL**

**Chapter 09: Smiles & Souls**

"HOLD ON JUST a minute..." Kagome said as confusion quickly consumed her former anger. She peered up at Susumu. "So, you're from my time, aren't you?"

"Probably," Susumu answered with a careless shrug.

"How do you know about demons and half-demons?" Kagome asked Susumu suspiciously, planting her hands on her hips and narrowing her eyes at him.

"Well, why do you know about demons and half-demons?" he countered her easily as he crossed his arms over his chest.

"Because I travel through time," Kagome admitted while rolling her eyes. Susumu blinked at her reply, taken aback.

"Well, I guess that's not the same reason I know about demons," he relented with a grumble.

"You two! Save the chat for later!" Amaya barked. "We need to get moving again, and quickly." Hearing Amaya speak shook Kagome out of her thoughts and back into the reality of everything happening.

"Amaya!" she said suddenly, turning to face her companion. "What about your eye?"

"It doesn't matter," Amaya said, shaking off the concern. "We're going to have to be careful going through here... this is a city, Kagome."

"Oh, no," Kagome murmured. She groaned as she recalled her previous adventure through one of Hell's cities.

"But I judge this should be the last trial before we arrive at the Devil's Guillotine," Amaya continued, ignoring Kagome's small protest.

"Really?" Kagome asked. "How can you tell?"

"Due to the distance each plane thus far has taken us toward the castle. This should cover the last stretch."

Kagome nodded. "That's good," she replied meekly.

"By the way," Amaya started again. "This is my friend Susumu. Susumu, this is my friend Kagome." Everyone gave Amaya a sort of deadpan stare as she re-looped her dark ponytail and ignored them pointedly. After she was finished, the group resumed their journey once more with a step onward into the city.

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THE GROUP FOLLOWED a back road through the city for the protection it offered. Like the earlier city that Kagome had traversed with Miharu, no truly powerful devils, humans, or beasts lingered in the alleys. The smaller demons who were found in the alleys were usually scared off by Susumu, who carried about him a strange aura that was almost unreadable to Kagome--she could not decide if it was a pure aura that had been pinched or something else. She let the matter rest as she also decided that out of the entire group of her new companions, she had the most experience with people who were like Susumu and thus found him the most amicable, which she also decided was rather pathetic since he was loud and often mean-spirited.

However, Amaya was cold and distant and not one who enjoyed idle chit-chat as even Sango did, Taro despised her, and Miharu was simply a child and thus difficult to converse with for too long. Susumu, grumpy and rude, was much easier person with whom to speak. So Kagome took a place beside him and attempted several times to strike up something with the semblance of a decent conversation.

"So, are you going back with us?" she asked him curiously.

"I don't know," he answered her, shifting uneasily and staring ahead of them. Kagome was surprised momentarily that he had answered her nicely and not with an angry, "That's none of your damn business, wench!" _Hold up, Kagome,_ she told herself when she realized what she was thinking. _This man is only grumpy, that doesn't mean he's like Inuyasha any more than some of his attitude problem._

"Well, why not?" she pursued.

"Is that any of your concern, you nosy bitch?" he snapped. Kagome sighed--there was her insult.

"Why are you in Hell?" she asked him bluntly.

"Why are you in Hell!" he countered defensively, almost snarling at her.

Kagome glanced at him briefly. "Rescuing a friend," she told him honestly, taking no note of his harsh tone. Her previous experiences had taught her that being open and patient usually _led_ to openness and patience.

"So you came into Hell, still alive, to rescue a _friend!"_ he asked, looking bewildered.

"Well, yes," Kagome responded as she tapped her chin lightly.

"Are you fucking insane?" he demanded.

"Well, have you ever met someone you just want to be with, no matter what? That for one more day with them, you would give anything in the world? That you would die for them even if you were not important to them?"

Susumu looked the other way to hide his expression from Kagome, but she barely caught the narrowed-eye look of bitterness.

"Sorry," Kagome said. "So, where are you from?"

"Tokyo," he responded easily, looking ahead of them once more. He and Kagome were walking in front of the others; Susumu, who knew his way around the city, was leading them towards their destination.

"Really?" Kagome asked brightly. "I'm from Tokyo, too."

"Great," he replied sarcastically. "I shouldn't have said anything."

"What part?" she continued.

"None of your damn business."

Kagome huffed, "Fine. I was just trying to be friendly." After that, she turned her head forward and paid him no further attention, instead dropping back to walk between him and the others. Susumu turned his head to give her a peculiar glance, but then shrugged and looked ahead once more and did not pursue an apology or inquiry. Kagome did not speak to anyone after that, she merely listened to Miharu sing or laugh or relate one event or another to either Taro or Amaya.

Eventually, she decided to update Kikyou on her journey. _Hi, Kikyou._

_Yes?_

_I just thought I'd let you know that we're almost there, and now we have a new "teammate",_ she said wryly. _Except, he claims he's supposed to be in Hell, unlike the others. I can't really read his aura._

_Interesting,_ Kikyou commented in a tone that clearly accented how little she cared for the politics of Kagome's life in Hell.

_What's everyone doing?_ Kagome went on.

_Sleeping, mostly, but for the monk who is on guard duty tonight._

_Tonight?_ Kagome repeated.

_Yes, girl, it is in the last stretch of the night. You awoke me._

_I'm sorry, Kikyou,_ Kagome apologized sheepishly. _I'll leave you alone now. Good night!_

Kikyou sighed across their connection. _Good night._

"Oh, man, my sleeping schedule is so off," Kagome commented to herself aloud.

"Like it matters!" Susumu growled from in front of her.

"It'll matter when I get back," she informed him waspishly, "and fall asleep in the middle of my exam." Susumu slowed his pace until Kagome was beside him again.

"How can you still be worried about your fucking exams?" Susumu demanded in pure disbelief. "You're standing right in the middle of Hell! And granted, while math class is a pain in the ass, you have bigger things to worry about."

"Just hush," Kagome commanded in the same tone she used to tell Inuyasha to _sit._ "It keeps my mind off it."

"Good, I was worried," he commented.

"Eh?"

"You haven't seemed too affected. We're in the middle of Hell and you're worried about your bed time and your exams. You'd have to be crazy to honestly be thinking about those things when we're dodging devils that have the ability and desire to shatter your soul."

"No, no," Kagome said lightly. "I'm very afraid. I don't think I've been more afraid in all my life."

"I would be, too," he said, "if I was a priestess in this position."

Kagome stopped walking. "How did you know I was a priestess?"

"What, are you trying to hide it?" he asked with a smirk. "It's obvious." She started walking again, between Susumu and the others once more.

"What are you? Who are you?" Kagome asked him suddenly, unnerved entirely by the man in front of her. His aura was unreadable, he turned up as if out of nowhere to save her and the others, he was modern and yet knew of demons and half-demons, and now he was able to read her spirituality without any sort of strain. She was not sure how all these things lined up, but he was making her wary.

"None of your business." Kagome swallowed thickly.

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"I'VE BEEN THINKING," Kagome mentioned to Amaya some time later, her voice uncertain. "Shouldn't this city be more dangerous?" In all of their journeying, the city had given them the least amount of trouble. The walking was easy, they had a clear destination in sight, and nothing attacked them at all. It was disconcerting.

"That is what I worry about, as well," Amaya responded, surveying the city briskly.

"It's not that bad," Susumu stated, almost defensively. "Whoever designed this place expected the weak ones to be killed off by the starscape. Lucky for you guys I was strolling by and happened to notice you, and that I also know all the secrets well enough by now."

"You just tell yourself that," Taro said. "I'm sure we could've managed."

"I like Susumu," Miharu commented with a large grin. Susumu smiled and tousled her hair happily.

"Even though he's rude and teaching you horrible language?" Kagome asked the little girl.

"I already knew those words," Miharu told her. "Want to hear? F--"

"No!" the rest of the group, excluding Susumu who smirked, yelled in unison. Miharu just smiled brightly at their reaction.

"'Kay!" she chirped cheerfully.

"Alright, my house is just up ahead," Susumu eventually said. "We'll stay there to rest and all that jazz."

"'We'll'? Since when are you coming along?" Taro snarled snidely.

"Ever since I decided Kagome's boyfriend--"

"Not my boyfriend!"

"--Was cool enough to check out." He yawned and squinted at the castle, the perfect image of indifference.

"He'll probably kill you," Kagome grumbled while Taro growled at the group in general.

"And why would he _try_ to kill me?" Susumu asked mockingly.

"Because he picks fights with anyone as arrogant as he is and he also picks fights with any boys I hang out with. You fall into both categories, Susumu," Kagome explained with an annoyed sigh. "And do you, by any chance, have anything that will make my legs feel better?"

"For the living? Afraid not."

Kagome groaned. The cuts on her legs were stinging and her imagination was beginning to stir up terrible images of their future--horrible scarring, infection that would lead to rot that would then lead to amputation... The cuts themselves were no worse individually than the ones she got while playing basket ball at school, but biology class had taught her that a small infection could cause tremendous pain and trouble.

"Here we are," Susumu interrupted her thoughts with an affectionate introduction to his house.

"Why do you have such a nice house in Hell?" Kagome asked as she glanced up at the sprawling home.

"Quit attempting to be sharp and perceptive and remember that Hell has no rhyme or reason."

"Quit antagonizing me and remember Hell has no fury like a woman scorned..." Kagome retaliated with a grumble. Susumu just grinned and opened the front door, ushering them all inside with a lavish bow.

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OVER HER JOURNEY, Kagome had grown accustomed to waking from each rest that the group took and feeling no more energetic; she always felt more drained, because her sleep did not matter here--only the passage of time did. Usually, however, her mind was refreshed and, because she was a morning person, she always had the feeling that she was truly going to see Inuyasha again, that she was nearly by his side once more--and that feeling itself gave her a reckless type of energy.

However, after awakening from a night's worth of sleep at Susumu's house, she hardly had the strength to get out of bed, and her inspired thoughts did not come to her. Instead, as she struggled to pull herself into a weak standing position, she realized that she had to get to Inuyasha, and quick--there could be no more rests.

She had never taken into account how much energy she was actually losing. Bits and pieces had been stolen by her, first by Miharu and then by Taro and later by Susumu, and they had already used up and lost that energy themselves. Also, there was the energy she lost simply by being in Hell; the steady draining that happened no matter where she was or what she was doing. Waking up that day, she knew she did not have much longer before she was made no more than one of the accidentals of Hell herself.

Kagome pushed herself beyond the room she had been using and walked down the stairs, finding Susumu sitting in the kitchen with Miharu around the table.

"Hungry?" Susumu asked her. Kagome declined when she recalled Kikyou's warning, words that seemed to have been spoken years ago.

"How long are we going to stick around here?" she asked as she sat down at the table next to Miharu. There was a little window over the kitchen sink; outside, she could see demons and people milling about in the streets busily.

"What, you don't like my house?" he asked teasingly.

"We just need to get going," Kagome snapped. "All this time we dawdle, the more and more likely it is we'll be too late to get to Inuyasha." She was tired and feeling impatient, feelings which increased day by day during her stay in Hell.

Susumu held his hands up in a pacifying gesture and brushed off her attitude. "Alright. Amaya's upstairs getting prepared and I think Taro's with her. As soon as they get down here, we'll go."

"Oh yeah, good morning," Kagome said with a small, cheerful smile. "It was kind of you to let us stay here. And good morning to you, too, Miharu."

"Good morning!" Miharu chirped back, giving her brightest smile, as Susumu rolled his eyes. Before anyone else could speak, Taro and Amaya ambled down the stairs noisily and they all set off at a pace that Amaya set for them.

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Author's Notes: Every review is very important to me, even if I do not take the time to respond to every one individually (I don't want to clutter up the page; however, I do respond to all e-mails, so if you want to talk, feel free to do it that way). Thank you everyone for the support and advice you've given me. (:

XOXO,  
Kyubi Kyebu


	10. Chapter 10: My Eyes on the Sky

**BETWEEN HEAVEN AND HELL**

**Chapter 10: My Eyes on the Sky**

"THAT LOOKS CREEPY," Miharu commented with a childish shudder as she took her turn peeking through a fissure along the fortress wall. Taro across from the small girl had his arms crossed against his chest and was staring back at the city stonily. Even Amaya looked a little more worried than usual. Susumu looked carefully indifferent.

Kagome, on the other hand, was excited and grinning brilliantly and almost overpowered by relief. The Shikon shards were at the edge of her senses, like seeing a candle glow from a great distance. They were there--which meant that Amaya had correctly guessed where to go, and also that Kagome would have an easier time finding Inuyasha... as long as the shards were still with him, but Kagome pushed aside any doubts to the back of her mind. She would just have to rely on her observance of the Shikon shard's power.

However, despite her joy, she was growing increasingly aware of how dangerous their next task was going to be. She took a second peek through the crack in the fortress wall when Miharu stepped away.

The fortress wall itself was huge. Kagome and her companions had spent several hours wandering around the edge, looking for a more subtle entrance than the front gates, and had eventually come along a crack running through the side: it was just wide enough for them to squeeze through. Inside the fortress, as Kagome saw while peeking carefully inside, was an entire village. Small huts with thatched roofs circled around the castle itself, and in the town centre were several peddlers advertising bones and body parts and bottles of different kinds of energies and passports to the human world and enchanted relics. At the edge of the town centre was a long scaffold from which dangled a broken, flogged, and limp body. One one corner of the scaffold a group of devil children sat playing a hand game from which the winner drew prizes of mixed currencies of origins Kagome could not tell from her distance. The sky just over head the fortress was dark, but an orange glow arose from the ground and faintly illuminated everyone and everything inside. From the angle at which she stood, Kagome could see the top of the infamous guillotine after which the place was named, poking menacingly out from around one edge of the castle.

Devils of all sorts wandered around, either laughing with one another or brutally shredding each other; all over the fortress, more and more beings were crackling out of existence as souls were shattered. Some were fighting to the soul-shatter simply out of sport, and the winners and onlookers jested and cheered each time a soul was completely ruined.

Kagome pulled her head out of the fissure and turned to address her companions. "You guys stay here," she ordered. "I'll go in and get Inuyasha by myself."

"Ridiculous," Amaya responded. "You do not know how to go about this."

"Miharu is definitely not going in there," Kagome insisted. "Anyway, I can sense him now... I can get to him. There's no reason to endanger more of us than we have to, and I think the fewer of us that go, the better off we'll be."

"Yeah, but if you get offed who will take us back to earth?" Taro grumbled.

"How about we split into two groups," Susumu suggested. "Since I'm supposed to be here, I can go under the guise that I've capture Kagome and Amaya and am using them for my own devilish purposes." He grinned at his own play on words. "Amaya can go with us half way and keep guard where we need her to. Taro can stay here with Miharu and protect her."

"Alright, let's go," Kagome affirmed, contented that at least Miharu was being spared. Kagome brushed her bangs away from her eyes and carefully followed Susumu through the crack in the fortress wall, Amaya trailing her listlessly. No one seemed to take any notice of their entry.

"So, how is this to be accomplished?" Amaya questioned Susumu airily, glancing blankly about the village that sprawled out before them.

"Where is he, Kagome?" Susumu asked.

Kagome pointed toward the castle confidently. With the two girls following him, Susumu led the way through the village. They did not attract too much attention to themselves, which made Kagome a little uneasy. The demons in the village sometimes threw glances or glares at Susumu and then went back to what they were doing once he smirked at them.

Kagome just shook her head and followed, glancing up at the castle and smiling when she caught sight of the Shikon shards' glow.

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WHEN KAGOME, AMAYA, and Susumu approached the castle, Kagome was able to verify that he was indeed inside it rather than somewhere around it. With some resignation, they decided to venture onward. Entering the castle was easy enough for them to do--they entered simply and without any interference from a side passages, since the doors were rotted, dusty, and nearly useless at keeping anyone or anything out.

Kagome was thankful that their passage was unmarked by trouble, but she was also uneasy by how smooth it had gone. However, she kept quiet on the situation and merely went with the others.

"Alright," Susumu whispered as they entered the castle into a small, dark storage room with cabinets of moldy food. "Amaya, you stay hidden down here and try to deter anyone who might be on our trail. If danger arises, get yourself out of here. Kagome and I will go on."

"Agreed," Amaya said with a nod of her head, sinking into the shadows made by the door and a wall of shelves.

"Let's go," Susumu said to Kagome. "I'll follow you." Kagome nervously took the lead and carefully began picking her way toward the direction she could sense the Shikon shard. They entered a vast, dim hallway that turned and twisted into different branches; if Kagome did not have the shard to follow, she knew she would become lost in the corridors.

The closer she got to the Shikon shards, however, the more confusing finding them actually became, so she felt lost despite the focus. Their direct location seemed to alter whenever she paused in front of a door, as if the contents beyond the door were called in from some other plane and did not belong. Sometimes, the shards faded entirely when she stepped before a door; in other places the Shikon's light spiked up with such flare and abruptness that it left Kagome a little dazed.

Finally, the dark hallway led to a door about which Kagome felt comfortable. She gently teased open the handle and looked inside. The room beyond the door was nearly completely pitch and void, lit only by small torches hung along the wall, whose faint glows seemed more like specks of burning dust than light. However, it was just enough to show Kagome what was inside. She swallowed thickly. If she had just rushed forward as fast as she had wanted to, she would have ended her life. The entire floor was missing; instead, an endless blackness loomed downward like a yawning mouth.

Susumu growled grumpily. "Who the hell keeps a fucking pit in their damn guest bedroom?"

Kagome huffed and shut the door, and the two pushed onwards. Some time later, Kagome could again feel the Shikon shards clearly. Carefully, she opened up the door she had come to and peeked inside to see a brightly lit hallway--almost painfully so after the dimness of the hallway--lined with a series of white doors with plastic black numbers on each one. The bars of florescent lights mounted on the ceiling hummed and popped and the thin blue carpet lining the hall was clean and well-kept, but obviously old and a little ragged. It looked like a cheap motel.

"I have something else to take care of while you do this," Susumu said before Kagome could take the first step forward. Kagome looked back at him, mildly surprised by the sudden seriousness of his tone. "If you come across trouble, get yourself out of here and don't worry about me. I'll meet up with you later."

Kagome blinked after him as Susumu raced off in the other direction, turning down a branch of the hallway and disappearing from sight. With a shake of her head, Kagome cautiously tip-toed into the bright corridor. She was alone now; alone in a place she did not understand, and fear made her heart pound hard in her chest. She took in a deep breath and steeled herself, and then carefully took each step one at a time, following the shards' trail. One fear fell into another.

It had felt like years since she had last seen Inuyasha. _Nothing will be better than seeing him again,_ she told herself, even though she was still afraid. _Nothing will be better than the relief of knowing he's OK._

With that needy desperation, and filling with the fear that he would be gone, Kagome gave up the caution that was only allowing her anxiety to grow and took off in a reckless run, pushing herself as fast as she could go and taking no notice of the tears falling down her cheeks as she rushed down the hall, wanting only to see Inuyasha again.

Eventually, she came to the room where she knew the shards were. Nervously, she let her fingers hover over the steel doorknob and simply stared at the reflection of the bright florescent light reflecting off the handle.

_What if I open the door and he's not there?_ she asked herself, furrowing her brow. _What if just the Shikon shards are? What if this is another trap? What if someone knows I'm here and lured me here?_ Then she swallowed thickly. _Or what if I open the door, and he's worse than dead? What if his soul is shattered and gone for ever?_

Kagome shook those thoughts away and opened the white door slowly.

The room beyond was much different than the hallway she had been standing in. It looked like a stone prison cell, with one window in the far corner where, upon inspecting it, Kagome saw slips of her own life pass by. There were good moments, which only seemed to mock her; and then the bad moments, serving to remind her. There was no light in the room except what Kagome allowed to leak in from the door, and tiny spikes of stained-glass colored light dribbling in from the window playing her life. The inside smelled like a strange mixture of things, of tears and blood and old lilacs and hemlock and oranges and the sea, but mostly of the forest.

She hardly paid mind to all of that. None of that was important anymore when she saw Inuyasha sitting against the side wall, with his back facing the window and eyes half-closed. His mouth was quirked downward in a tired frown and his posture was weak. His fingers absently turned over purple-stained Shikon shards. His ears were down-turned and, even though he was partially lit by the small beam of light Kagome was letting in, he did nothing. He did not raise his head, even though Kagome knew he should be able to smell her. _Maybe whatever I smell like blends in with the room,_ she consoled herself. _Maybe he can't distinguish the difference._

Quietly, Kagome slipped one shoe off to prop open the door to keep from locking herself inside, and then she walked over to Inuyasha, the calluses on her toes sticking slightly to the cold stone and an awkward limp in her gait made by the height difference her shoe gave her.

The pain along the back of her legs was forgotten now, the memory of crossing dangerous places remote. The frustration and the edginess of constantly being at risk for her soul was gone. The fear that he would be destroyed, the fear of what would happen when he knew Kikyou was the one who had helped her. The fear that he might be angry with her for betraying him, that he may never trust her again. Those thoughts, those worries, were all gone.

Standing there in front of him as no more than a normal teenage girl who had done something extraordinary, she showed all the wear of her journey. Her legs were raw and torn and covered in scars that would never heal, her hair was dirty and matted as if she had lived on the streets for years, her clothes were ripped and bloody; she was so exhausted that breathing felt like a torment for her tired body. She was missing one shoe, and so she limped when she walked. To anyone else who might have seen her, she looked broken and detached. However, she was filled with a much different feeling--she did not feel broken or detached or exhausted or hurt, or anything she should have felt. Instead, she felt a sense of _home_ that only came from being with the half-demon in front of her. She felt that something she had strove to do in life was finally done; her long journey was ending; that if she died tomorrow, she would die with her heart complete.

Even if he did not love her now, even if he had never loved her or would never love her--that did not seem as important anymore, not as important as loving _him_ did. Her heart beat calmly now.

"Hey... Inuyasha?" she called out in a hushed tone. Inuyasha's gold eyes snapped open at once and he lifted his head. He looked at her first with an amazed, wide-eyed disbelief that quickly melted into suspicion.

"Ka... Kagome?" he finally whispered, watching her cautiously as she bent down to her knees and looked up into his eyes imploringly.

"I'm right here," she assured.

"Why the hell are you here? What the hell happened to you?" Inuyasha demanded after his shock had worn off. He was quickly examining her appearance and the weary sort of contentment on her face.

"I came to save you," Kagome said, licking her lips. "So let's get out of here, Inuyasha, please, let's go home now."

Inuyasha opened his mouth and then snapped it shut again. He was unsure of what exactly he felt; shock, shame, joy, disbelief, pride, amazement all touched him. But the moment that Kagome grabbed his blood-stained, clawed hand and pulled him up from the ground, her fingers smaller and more delicate than his but just as blood-stained, that moment that he finally knew it was really her then and not some figment of Hell, as her life dripped into him, all of those emotions melted down into something else entirely.

Knowing what happened to the living in Hell, knowing the lengths Kagome had gone just to find him, made his heart ache in a way that filled him with a sense of need and relief, and something else he could not quite explain.

"Kagome," he said finally, "I can't protect you here."

"I know," Kagome consoled with a small smile. "Nor are you allowed to. Don't you dare draw that Tessaiga, you're corporeal now. So, let's get out of here and go home, I have help waiting--" she stopped abruptly when Inuyasha's eyes widened in shock.

"Well, well, well... what have we here?" a cold voice cooed from behind.

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Author's Notes: I've never watched YuYuHakusho (is that the name?) before, so I'm sorry! I didn't mean to steal names or such. I usually use a name generator for picking out new names. (: Everyone, don't worry! I'm very canon about relationships. I'll never make an original character to take the place of Rumiko Takahashi's, trust me!

XOXO,  
Kyubi Kyebu


	11. Chapter 11: I'll Learn to Let You Go

**BETWEEN HEAVEN AND HELL**

**Chapter 11: I'll Learn to Let You Go**

KAGOME FELT HERSELF go completely rigid as the cool, slippery voice behind her chuckled.

"A priestess--a living priestess? Came right into the spider's web?" the thick, masculine voice drawled. He chuckled again, a low chuckle that sent shivers down Kagome's spine. "I could not ask for better luck."

Kagome slowly turned on her heel to face the devil who was smirking at the couple from the open door. His lazy blue eyes watched them intently as Kagome and Inuyasha shifted to face him.

"Allow me to introduce myself," he said breezily as Kagome opened her mouth to speak. "I have no name, no place of birth... nothing that you would understand. Do you know why, priestess?"

Kagome could hear Inuyasha's breath becoming labored and worried behind her as she stared up at the man and shook her head to indicate that she did not know why.

"Because," he hummed playfully, "I'm part of the Council of Devils, love. And I do believe you have trespassed on _my_ grounds, meddled in _my_ affairs regarding my prisoner here, and have quite overstayed your welcome."

"Well, it's not my fault you did a crummy job of keeping guard on your own castle!" Kagome snapped. The devil just laughed at her remark and took one step forward. Kagome took a step backward, closer to Inuyasha. The devil took one more slow step forward. Inuyasha put a hand on her shoulder while Kagome looked at the devil with as much venom as she could manage.

"Don't come any nearer!" she yelled as the devil took another step closer to her, grinning widely as he played. Kagome pushed Inuyasha behind her.

"Or what?" the devil snarled.

"I swear if you touch Inuyasha, I'll, I'll--" she started, floundering for an acceptable, believable threat.

"You'll what, love?" he pressed, taking another step closer. Inuyasha stepped in front of her, growling defensively. Kagome pushed him away again, unaware of the pink energy that had sent Inuyasha flinching backwards as it rustled away from her fingers. The tension in the air popped and cracked, fizzling with energy, as the living priestess awaited the stalking devil, pink and blue and purple and white wisps of light and curling energy spiraling out in all directions from the space between them. Inuyasha stood up from where he had been knocked over and, reprimanding her quietly, tried to get between her and the devil once more.

As the devil came nearer, as Kagome looked up at him defiantly, in her heart she was afraid that this devil would destroy her soul and Inuyasha's.

"I'm sorry, Inuyasha," she whispered as the devil jeered. When he was close enough to strike her, Kagome's arms automatically flew up into the air to protect her face.

A deafening pop erupted in the air in time with her hands' flailing, and an accompanying bright light exploded and rendered Kagome temporarily blinded. A h owl of anguish echoed out beyond the white light, and Kagome caught the scent of copper and acid and gingerale and the smallest hint of honey...

It all faded and she barely had the strength to stand. She swayed on her feet as the violent white light simmered and faded.

When the afterimages were gone, Kagome glanced ahead, looking for the devil and wondering what exactly he had done to her, and how much longer she would live. But when she found him, the devil was on the ground, charred and lifeless, hair singed and clothes burned, bones jutting out awkwardly at places where his pallid skin had been melted. The body cracked once and then faded into ash, which settled into the cracks of the stones on the floor.

Kagome swallowed hard and looked down at her hands, where her spiritual light was duller than ever. Inuyasha made a small sound of disbelief behind her as he overcame his shock.

"Oh, God..." he whispered.

"Oh, God..." Kagome repeated.

_Kikyou... I just killed a prince of Hell..._

Before Kagome could make sense of Kikyou's replies, her energy was gone entirely. She took an uneasy step forward as the ground seemed to turn and spin beneath her, and she tripped over nothing and plummeted to the ground at what, to her, seemed like the slow, soft speed of a feather.

Her eyes closed before she felt Inuyasha lunge forward and catch her.

Inuyasha unwound his haori hastily and wrapped her up before gathering her in his arms and taking off out of the cell, pounding through the hallway and leaving Kagome's forgotten shoe in the doorway. Distantly, he heard angry voices yelling back and forth and a door slamming. He put on an extra burst of desperate speed before he could be caught.

He spiralled down hallways, following Kagome's old trail to lead him out of the castle.

"Who are you and why have you got Kagome?" a woman growled, stepping in front of him and blocking the side door that led to the world outside.

"Move outta the way, wench, unless you want all the fucking Council down your back!" he threatened her.

"Not until you tell me why you have Kagome!" the woman repeated, unsheathing her flaming sword.

"Because she came here to get me! Now who the hell are you?" Inuyasha snapped.

"Are you Inuyasha?" she countered, letting her sword drop.

"Why does it matter?" he asked suspiciously.

"I'm Amaya, Kagome's companion. I have helped her come here," she answered in a much calmer tone, sheathing her sword again. Inuyasha gave her a skeptical look and then shook his head.

"Whatever, we've got to get out of here quick," he stated. Under his breath he added, "Only Kagome could make a friend in Hell."

"Follow me, I'll lead us out of here," Amaya ordered tonelessly, sprinting off towards the direction of the fortress wall. Inuyasha slowed his pace in order to follow, scowling at the woman's back and occasionally looking back at the village--everyone was watching them intently. He squeezed through the cracked fortress behind Amaya, carefully pulling Kagome through with him.

"And who the hell are these two?" Inuyasha demanded as he noted the little girl and the older boy sitting with their backs slumped against the castle wall.

"Taro and Miharu--also Kagome's companions. We'll save introductions for later, since you're so urgent. Where's Susumu?"

"Susumu?" Inuyasha repeated, growling. "There're _more_ of you?"

Amaya and Taro exchanged worried glances.

"Look, numbskulls, you can go back and look for Fufumu if you want, but I'm out of here!" Inuyasha exclaimed, taking off through the city. The small group of Kagome's friends followed, running as fast as they could through the city and never daring to bother with the demons and devils and humans that trailed them. Inuyasha made the group plainly aware that they had to keep going, no matter at what cost--and he was not one who typically ran from battle. From time to time, the small girl cried out as she was jostled while Taro carried her, but their hasty flight through the city otherwise went smoothly.

When they came to the edge of the town, Amaya paused and bit her lip.

"DAMN it!" she swore, her calm resolve finally breaking as she observed what lay before her. All of the traps that they had previously encountered, survived, learned of, conquered--they were all gone. There was no sight at all of the sharp field of grass, nor the desert, nor the starscape--it was all gone.

In place of the starscape that had left Amaya blind in one eye was a long, endless gray sea, broken up by choppy waves foaming at the crests. Inuyasha risked a glance towards the city, where they demons were watching them; in the distance, he could see guards from the castle quickly catching up to them.

"We've got to go _somewhere!"_ Inuyasha howled.

"How the hell are we supposed to cross the sea, idiot?" Taro growled at Inuyasha. "You're just as pushy as your girlfriend."

Before Inuyasha could protest, a splash interrupted his thoughts. Amaya had plunged into the ocean and was struggling to get past the breakers. Inuyasha moved Kagome from the cradle of his arms to an uncomfortable position over his shoulder and he splashed after Amaya, quickly replacing her in front of the group. They all pushed onwards through the hard, gray waves until the sand at the bottom disappeared and they resumed their journey by swimming painfully, fighting the current.

Taking a glance backwards again, Inuyasha found that most of the demons had stopped their pursuit of the group. What guards remained were just coming upon the sea, where they seemed to lose interest. Most were growling and fighting amongst themselves; several dived into the cold waves to follow them, but most turned back or away, clearly disinterested. Most guards in Hell were unreliable, because people only did things in Hell that suited themselves.

Inuyasha looked ahead again at the eternal ocean. He knew his endurance would allow him to swim the entire day if he needed to do so--seeing Kagome again had restored his normal vivacity and energy--but he also knew that Kagome's human companions would tire quickly. Inuyasha swore mentally and, before he realized it, bitterly wished that Shippou was available to transform and carry the humans; or even Kirara, who could carry a few of them.

Even as he sought a solution, the humans behind him were slowing. He hit a sandbar and sighed.

"Hurry it up, there's a sandbar over here so you measly humans can rest for a minute." The humans all clambered onto the sandbar, panting wildly and dripping salt water. Miharu was shivering.

While the group relaxed so that everyone could catch their breaths, concentrating only on what lay before them, the sandbar began collapsing beneath them. The sinking sandbar pulled them down into the water powerfully, with much more strength than the undertow at the shore had held. They all flailed and gasped and the humans swiftly disappeared beneath the gray water. Inuyasha desperately kicked at the waves, his thrashing barely keeping him and Kagome above the water. His fear kept his legs pumping--Kagome might drown if she was pulled under.

"Damn it!" he swore as the tug grew stronger. He clamped a hand over Kagome's face as he was pulled down into the aquatic pit.

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WHEN KAGOME AWOKE again, several hours after her experience in the castle, it was because she felt something intensely evil nearby that startled her instincts into opening her eyes for her. Her body, on the other hand, was far from recovered.

When her eyes flashed open she bolted upright with energy she did not know she had, panting, and she found herself inside a small cove that was lit by minute pools of glowing water. Amaya, Taro, and Miharu were all the ground across from her, separated from her by one of the pools, and breathing shallowly in sleep. Susumu sat some ways apart from them, dozing lightly. Inuyasha himself was next to her, watching her carefully with his head tilted.

Everyone but Inuyasha was asleep soundly, everything was calm, and the feeling of an evil presence nearby had vanished entirely. _Strange,_ she thought. _I suppose I was dreaming of something bad._

Still, Kagome cautiously scanned the cove and examined her sleeping friends carefully. Then she moaned and rubbed the back of her stiff neck as the feeling of shock wore off and she was left with her aching body and burning lungs. She smiled weakly at Inuyasha and he shrugged.

_Kagome?_ Kikyou asked suddenly.

_Hi, Kikyou._

_What has happened?_

_Well..._ Kagome paused, trying to remember when she had last talked with Kikyou. She could not recall if she had told anything to the priestess before she had passed out. _I found Inuyasha,_ she began. _He's with me now. But there was this devil there, one of the more influential people in Hell, he's a member of their "government", if it can be called that. He wasn't entirely happy that I was rescuing Inuyasha and I accidentally... killed him._

Kikyou was silent for a long moment from the safety of Earth. _You better get out of there pretty damn fast,_ she eventually advised, shocking Kagome with her use of language. The younger girl swallowed thickly as the magnitude of the situation teased the edges of her thoughts.

_I will._ Kagome turned when she felt Inuyasha's stare resting on her. She smiled weakly again at the peculiar look he was giving her. "Hi," she said innocently. "Is something wrong?"

"Nothing," he replied, shaking his head. "Who is that Fufumu guy?"

Kagome frowned. "His name is Susumu. He saved my life, probably more than once. He's been traveling with us for a little while and helping us out." When Inuyasha growled Kagome gave him a concerned look. "What's wrong?"

"I don't fucking like the bastard."

Kagome cleared her throat and rolled her eyes--she recognized that tone of voice. It was the same rough growl that Kouga received, and the same one that slipped from his mouth when she mentioned Houjou or any other boy from her modern time.

"Inuyasha, who did I come here to Hell for?" she asked, almost chiding.

"Ahh... me," he grumbled, looking away from her intense glare.

"That's right. I came to Hell for you, Inuyasha. You. Do you really need to question my loyalties right now?" Kagome asked as she sighed. She leaned painfully against the back of the cold, stone cave wall and glanced around once more. "Where are we now, anyway?"

Inuyasha snorted. "Hell if I know."

Kagome shrugged and yawned. "I'm so tired," she mumbled suddenly, pulling her knees up to her chest and resting her forehead against them. "I didn't even realize how truly, really tired I am."

"Well, of course you're going to be tired," Inuyasha responded as if the whole situation was obvious. "You just blew up a Council member."

"I don't mean just that," Kagome said, scowling against her bare knees. "I mean, this whole time I've been here, since I've come here. I've been so tired. My energy drains away, and I mean, I noticed it awhile ago, but it was always the same as just being really exhausted. Even when I was at my most exhausted, it was never enough to overpower my worry that I wouldn't find you or get to you in time. I kept pushing myself even when I was tired, and sleeping never helped at all... and I was so afraid of everything and afraid I couldn't find you... But now that I've found you, being tired and afraid doesn't matter anymore... I'm just so happy..." she trailed off with her breathing deep and even, signalling her retreat into sleep.

Inuyasha was grateful that she had fallen asleep again, which she always seemed to do during important situations. He was thankful for the habit on this occasion, however, because he would not have to answer her confession, which meant he would not say the wrong thing to her and upset her. He did not want to upset her now. He flicked an ear and absently wondered if he would ever want to make her angry again.

She had made such a sacrifice for him. That thought came over and over again, but each time it seemed like a sudden realization, like he had come to some epiphany. Over the years of his journey with Kagome, in their search of the Shikon and Naraku, he had grown more and more loyal to her; gradually, and he never realized just when he first decided he would protect her for her, and not because she was unnervingly similar physically to Kikyou.

After several months of being with her, however, long after he decided that she was her own person, there was nothing he would not do for her--it had not been love, maybe not then, but it was something, and it was there. He had not realized it then--he had not known he would do anything for her.

But he was not her hero because he was rewarded for it, nor was he her hero because he expected something in return from her. He would have saved Kagome from Hell--from _anything_--without even thinking on it, but he had never wondered if she would do the same for him. He did not require that she be willing to return the devotion. Now that she had, he did not know what to feel. It was like being engulfed with some kind of deep peace or certainty. He had never known peace and certainty until then, until he knew that Kagome truly meant every word she ever said to him.

_I hope where ever you go next... even if death... it is full of the happiness and the peace you deserve, for making me so happy during life..._

He watched her sleep and his face softened. His entire lonely childhood, his painful separation from Kikyou, the countless demon attacks were all worthwhile, and he would live them all again and again to stay with her, if the peace in his heart now would stay with him for the rest of his life.

The feeling of being important, of being accepted... of being loved whole-heartedly and purely. It was a feeling worth fighting for.

Inuyasha wished he could reach out and touch her, hold her close to him, just this once, but he could not take her energy now when she had so little left. So instead he watched her sleepy breathing and swore to protect her for always. He had sworn it many times before, but he could think of no more that he could offer her. He could give her only his promise to keep her safe from harm. She sighed contentedly in her sleep, as if gratefully accepting his oath.

Inuyasha closed his eyes and leaned back against the cave wall, listening to the sounds of everyone around him. Kagome murmured in her sleep.

_I always want you to know... that you can come back to me, even if from Hell, and I will never, ever turn you away..._


	12. Chapter 12: Come Back Home to Me

**BETWEEN HEAVEN AND HELL**

**Chapter 12: Come Back to Me**

"SO, HOW EXACTLY did we get in here?" Taro muttered as he observed the quiet cavern. Amaya was also surveying the cave carefully as she combed her hair with her fingers and tied her ponytail again.

"I saved your asses, once again," Susumu answered with little emotion. "Wake her up, it's time to go if we're going to get going at all." He pointed to Kagome, who was the only one still sleeping.

"Kagome," Amaya barked at the sleeping girl. Kagome wearily rolled against the cave wall, blinking awake stickily as she slowly took account of everyone around her. She placed on a sleepy, cheerful smile and stood weakly up from the ground. Inuyasha stood carefully beside her and steadied her once as she wobbled, but after she regained her ground she was able to walk steadily.

They all followed Susumu through the cavern's twisting rooms and halls, all cautiously taking note of each pool of luminescent water, each dripping stalactite. They said nothing to one another as they made sense of their surroundings and mentally mapped their progress--instead they kept themselves, worn and worried. Even Miharu looked downtrodden. She smiled up at Kagome briefly like a brave warrior and then let her tired frown overcome her face again as she watched the ground. Kagome yawned wearily and glanced towards Inuyasha, whose ears were twitching atop his head. He was still a little suspicious of the entire group, especially because everyone's mood was poor. Susumu appeared to be caught in a daydream, mindlessly leading them through the cavern tunnels as if he knew them very well.

_Maybe he has internal GPS,_ Kagome joked to herself, snorting. She shook her head when Inuyasha gave her a look. _I must be delirious._

Eventually, the cave's tunnels widened like a yawning mouth and emptied into a shallow pool of water drenched in cold sunlight. Kagome's mood improved then. When they were high enough in the soft gray loam, Kagome looked over her shoulder and saw only the sea behind them, empty of pursuit, and even the castle was nowhere to be seen on the horizon. Ahead of them, the trail was clean and lifeless beach that eventually faded into forest. Beyond the trees she could see mountains and she smiled.

Amaya sighed lightly and Miharu jumped into Taro's arms, happy to be in the sun again. Inuyasha's ear roved momentarily, looking for any unnatural sound, while Susumu regarded Kagome and Inuyasha lightly.

"Let's go, already," Susumu demanded after several moments of surveying the new area. Inuyasha growled at him dangerously and Kagome groaned.

_This is just what it would be like to travel with Kouga,_ she consoled herself. _I can handle these egos, I do it all the time._ Kagome struck out the way and everyone followed her intently, warily keeping watch and being more alert than she had ever seen them as they waited for trouble to come to them. They passed through the forest in little time at all, and came out of the left-hand path at the fork of three branches that Kagome and Miharu had encountered before. They passed the stretch of forest in the trees where the two girls had hidden from the drasil-devil. Before long, the mountains were looming closely overhead, tall and sharp, and Kagome grinned.

"Once we get past the mountains, we'll be home-free," she said brightly. "Miharu and I didn't see any monsters this way, and we know the way through... it should be only a few hours before we're out of here."

Everyone nodded and they stepped off again.

After some time of scrambling over crumbling rocks, Miharu squealed delightedly. "Lookie! Bubbles!" she ordered joyously, pointing to a cluster of tiny, iridescent orbs floating gently down from the sky.

"Miharu, no!" Taro scolded, but she prodded one of the bubbles with her finger anyhow. It burst in a splash of rainbow colors.

"Ouch!" she cried out, her brown eyes gathering tears. "That really hurt!" she pouted, staring at her burned finger with a furrowed brow and her bottom lip protruding. Kagome opened her mouth to console her, accustomed to taking care of Shippou during such accidents, but Taro immediately scooped her up and examined the blistered appendage. Vaguely, Kagome recalled a memory from many years ago--when she had burned her finger on a lightbulb from her bedside lamp, and her father had taken care of it without one of her favorite neon pink Band-Aids--he had merely kissed the blister and told a humorous story to distract her from the pain.

Kagome smiled gently, almost wistfully, as Taro did the same for Miharu. _Amaya can say what she likes, but that man adores Miharu._

"I'm happy we're almost home," Kagome told Inuyasha. Inuyasha gave a small grunt to acknowledge her joy and Kagome continued to chatter for awhile, about how much she missed the others and how glad she was that everyone would get a second chance.

When they finished crossing the mountains, Amaya wearily halted their journey. "Let us stop here for a rest," she suggested. "We shall resume in the morning."

"No," Inuyasha argued. "Kagome's not going to last much longer here, we have to get out of here _tonight."_

"We're not going to last much longer ourselves, asshole," Taro growled in a disgusted tone. Inuyasha flexed his fingers and growled threateningly. "And if we're attacked, wouldn't you rather we can do something?"

"Keh. It won't matter if Kagome--"

"Hush. We will not take a very long break, then," Amaya amended. "Just enough so that our strength might return. And, if you do not mind me pointing out, Kagome is already asleep."

"And I'm trying to as well, if you guys don't fucking mind," Susumu barked as he leaned against a tree, sliding down to the ground. Inuyasha gave a disgruntled snort but did not further disagree. He to a seat next to Kagome and watched as the others dropped off to sleep.

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"I HATE GEOMETRY..." Kagome murmured as she rolled over in her sleep, mentally taking flight from a group of troublesome numbers and shapes that pursued her with a failing grade.

"And I'm sure he hates you, too, Kagome," Taro stated, misunderstanding Kagome's declaration. "But let's get out of here."

Kagome mumbled wordlessly and pushed herself out of sleep when she heard her name while Inuyasha growled at Taro. Amaya rolled her eyes, fixed her ponytail, and Susumu stretched sleepily.

"When we get home," Kagome said in a bleary voice, standing slowly and following her already moving companions, "I'm going to sleep for an entire week in my own bed, and then I'm going to take the longest hot bath in the history of the world. And then I'll eat bowls and bowls of oden 'til I can't eat anymore... and it will be Heaven!"

"Keh."

"What's wrong, Inuyasha?" Kagome asked him curiously as she watched his ears flick nervously. Amaya, Taro, and Susumu also alertly awaited his response. Miharu only yawned from her cradle of Taro's arms.

"...I don't know," Inuyasha responded after awhile, sniffing the air and narrowing his eyes. "But something seems wrong..."

"We _are_ in Hell," Susumu reminded him. "Of course it'll feel wrong to _you_ people."

"Susumu," Kagome started, "you say that as if it doesn't seem wrong to you."

"I told you a hundred times," Susumu said with a heavy, annoyed sigh, "I'm _supposed_ to be here. I am not an 'accidental'."

"But..." Kagome started, trying to fathom how someone sentient, someone who had helped her out so much across her journey through a dangerous and unfamiliar land, could belong in Hell. "Well, OK, I guess it's not my place to ask you why you belong here. But are you coming with us to start over?"

Susumu, who had been walking just ahead of Kagome, stopped and spun on his heel abruptly and snarled. Kagome took a step backwards and nearly collided with Inuyasha, who had been walking just behind her.

"Listen, bitch," he growled in a low voice. Inuyasha responded by growling louder than the human man and stepped up beside Kagome, flashing his claws in warning. "Not everyone wants to be fucking saved, especially by some high and mighty do-gooder priestess who lacks the mental capacity to keep herself out of trouble."

"Don't you fucking talk to Kagome that way, you half-wit!" Inuyasha threatened. His voice rumbled with an underlying threat and Kagome took a hesitant step away from both men.

She frowned. "Wait a minute," she said. "I was just offering. I'm sorry for being friendly."

"Nevermind," Susumu said haughtily before she could pursue the topic further, resuming a brisk walk that everyone imitated without question. Inuyasha fumed beside her, but she took his hand so that he would not chase after Susumu. Kagome stared at the ground as they walked onward.

_Kikyou,_ Kagome said tentatively. _How can someone wish to stay in Hell?_

_You are not thinking of staying, are you?_ Kikyou replied, almost humored.

_Of course not!_ Kagome did not even ask why Kikyou had tried to drag Inuyasha into such a place with her. _Just one of my comrades..._ she trailed off with a degree of hesitancy. Inuyasha dropped her hand and she looked up at him curiously.

"I'm draining your energy," he told her. She nodded.

_Oh?_ Kikyou prompted.

Reassured that Kikyou was willing to give her advice, Kagome sighed and continued. _I asked him if he was coming with us, and he got defensive and mean about it and just insulted me._

_Hmm. There is nothing I can say to that,_ Kikyou replied carefully. _Be wary of him and what he does. Anyone who wishes to remain in Hell cannot be as good a companion as he says he is... and especially if he's guarding a motive._

Silence lapsed between everyone once more, leaving Kagome in a cold silence that made her feel alone even among her companions.

As they neared the spot where Kikyou's portal had opened, Kagome halted, and the others followed in kind. She could not remember the exact location of the portal, but she knew they stood was nearby.

"We'll wait here, this is near where the portal opens," she said. Mentally, she said, _OK, Kikyou. We're ready for you to open the portal now._

_Alright..._ Kikyou replied with a mental sigh of disbelief.

"Thanks for your help, Susumu," Kagome said as she smiled briefly and impersonally at him. "This is where we leave."

"I don't think so," Susumu said suspiciously. "I see no portal..."

"Tha--" Kagome was broken off.

"And anyhow," he said, giving a dangerous half-grin. "I have strict orders, priestess."

"Orders?" Inuyasha growled with narrowed eyes. "From who?"

"I'm a little confused," Susumu began as he examined the slowly opening portal in the distance. "When we first met, I thought you must have simply followed me into the portal from Earth. But this portal here--" he said with a wave of his hands, looking in awe at the dark gap in the sky, "--is ten times more powerful. And maybe I can use that to my advantage."

"What?" Kagome asked, confused herself.

He chuckled. "I was sent on a mission to retrieve a certain something from your friend her--some jewelry shards or another," he told Kagome as he pointed to Inuyasha, who growled. "Meeting you helped me get to him quicker--ever wonder why I was so interesting in your half-demon pal? However, while I would have simply taken what I was sent to much earlier on, I was curious to see how you planned to leave Hell on your own, since it was my employer who opened the portal. Now," he said with a crooked smile, "we'll just have to see..."

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Author's Notes: Sorry for the long delay and short chapter. I had a death in the family and another family member in and out of the hospital, so I was rather busy traveling and being worried. This is the first thing I've written since January, so please forgive me if it's a bit patchy. (: Thanks for your continued support in my absence! **Aliryn**, I _am_ a bit predictable. Sometimes I like using the most stereotypical situations since everyone else tries so many twists, so it's fun to go in the direction everyone would automatically suspect. Thank you!

XOXO,  
Kyubi Kyebu


	13. Chapter 13: If You Love Him

**BETWEEN HEAVEN AND HELL**

**Chapter 13: If You Love Someone, Don't Let Them Go Without a Fight!**

INUYASHA YELLED IN surprise as a horde of scentless and eerily soundless monsters and demons sprung out from the bony underbrush, snarling silently and drooling and leering. Inuyasha growled and used his claws to slice through the first wave as Kagome warned him not to touch his legendary sword, for fear of what it might do to the plane. Amaya and Taro joined the fight after settling Miharu close to Kagome, who was reserving her strength for emergencies.

She did not stay by Miharu's side for long--while the others were occupied by the onslaught of monsters and devils, Susumu roughly pinned her to a tree with his hand.

"Oww!" Kagome whimpered, feeling her life drain at a pace rapid enough to burn.

"How does it feel, bitch?" he snarled, loud enough for only her to hear over the cracking and crunching of the battle going on around them. "How does it feel to come so close to your goal, and only fail..?"

"Kagome!" Inuyasha called as he caught sight of her, leaping over demons only to be knocked backwards and swallowed into another fight.

"How does it feel," Susumu went on, "to know you won't be saved?"

Kagome murmured wordlessly in reply, feeling hot tears start in the corners of her eyes. She heard Inuyasha shout her name again as the first tear tricked down her cheek and paused by her lip. Inuyasha's voice was frightened.

"How does it feel," Susumu repeated, "to know that you trusted me... and that I betrayed you... that I will drain every last shred of your pure life and pure energy, and become the force that destroys your world? How does it feel to know that I will use _your_ power to kill your half-demon? To kill your friends and family... in every generation?"

_Kikyou, close the portal!_ Kagome pleaded desperately across her connection.

_How am I to do that?_ Kikyou asked calmly. _I am too far in, I cannot retract this now._

_Do something!_ Kagome begged mournfully, hoping that the whimper she had just loosed in response to Susumu's tightening grasp was not audible to the priestess whose respect she still yearned for. _If you can't, we'll all die--and I mean all, you and the others included!_

"All of that!" Susumu shouted. Kagome had missed part of his monologue while talking to Kikyou, but Susumu hardly seemed to care if she was paying attention or not. "All of that!" he repeated. "That is nothing compared to what I have felt," he snarled, "to kill my own family with my own hands and with a clear mind, all so that I could live! Can you imagine that, priestess?" he said, his grip loosening around her neck just slightly. "Can you see yourself pinning your mother down as you hold her head underneath the water? To feel her lungs fill with water? To watch her neck bruise and welt at your fingertips? To watch her eyes go lifeless, to feel her body go limp beneath you?"

Kagome gasped for air, trying to breathe in any life that could be there. Tears were rolling down her face as she thrashed against him, trying to free herself. Any spiritual energy she blasted at him only killed her quicker; he did not flinch away from her. She did not have enough power left.

"Can you imagine breaking your little sister's neck the way you snap a pencil? That easily? It's painless, but that instant when she realizes what you're doing to her--that look in her eye would kill any man with a heart. And can you imagine doing all of this for your own free will, just to keep yourself from dying? And then, merely months later, being damned to Hell for the crime? Well, priestess," he whispered, tightening his grip again, "I know. And then that damn _fucking Naraku _picks me, of all the stupid bastards in here, to do his fucking dirty work and retrieve some damn fucking useless Jewel, as if I want to leave this place, where I don't have to face anyone cleaner than I, dirtier than I. Everyone here has sinned. No one in Hell is an accidental!"

Kagome gurgled in response, barely hearing what he spoke.

"Well, I'll tell you what, priestess." He snorted. "If I'm too dirty to live, if I'm capable of doing all that I have done, if I am able to kill the people I love and do it with a clear mind, so is everyone else in this world. Even you. And now that I have the chance, now that you've made the mistake of relying on me, the world will all be dirtier than it ever was, because I will make it mine. Every last dirty fucking sinner out there. Right. Down. To. Naraku."

_Please, I don't want to die like this..._

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INUYASHA PANTED, SWEATING, as his claws raked through another set of devils as they launched themselves at him. His eyes darted again anxiously to where Kagome was struggling, attempting to escape Susumu's strong grasp. _He's too strong for her,_ he thought bitterly. _Damn it!_ His heart beat frantically in his chest, harder than it ever had before. She would not just die here if Susumu consumed the last of her energy; her soul would break.

Inuyasha tore through another wave of devils as they came, struggling harder and harder to reach the girl who was meanwhile struggling more and more weakly.

"Kagome!" he called out again, his voice hoarse with fear and exertion. "Kagome!"

"Pay attention to us, half-breed," a skeletal devil hissed arrogantly, driving Inuyasha backwards. It was the first of the devils to have spoke, and it only made Inuyasha angrier.

"Ge'off me!" he roared, drawing his claws through another mass of bodies.

His heart seemed to pound against his skull. _I will not let Kagome die!_

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MIHARU WATCHED THE battle from the safety of a branch in a tree, which she had immediately climbed into when Kagome was pinned backwards. She swallowed and examined everything with a certainty, quietude, and concentration unlike anything she had before exhibited.

She knew everything that was happening. Taro and Amaya were fighting back to back, bloody and panting with fear, determination, anguish, and desperation wrought into their expressions. They were tiring. Somewhat closer to she and Kagome was Inuyasha, who was struggling as much with an inner battle as he was with the devils that poured into the clearing continuously. And Kagome, adjacent to her, was dying.

Kagome had saved her. Kagome had been her friend. Kagome was going to bring her back to Earth and give her a chance to live again, a chance she had never had. Kagome trusted her. Kagome _needed_ her.

Miharu let her solemnity pass and sucked in a gigantic gulp of air that seemed to shiver into her lungs. She could not tell if she was excited or terrified as she dropped down to the ground and sneaked her way through the forest--no one seemed to pay any mind to her at all--until she was behind Susumu.

She bravely looked up at the back of his head, at the soft black hair moving with the breeze slinking through the trees. He was whispering to the dying woman he had pinned, but his words all sounded like rambling nonsense to Miharu. So she licked her lips and steeled herself. She crouched down low onto the ground, and, just as she had seen mountain cats do, she pounced upward at Susumu. She dug her unkempt, sharp-edged fingernails deeply into the man's neck and shrilly cried into his ear. Susumu immediately released Kagome as he called out in sudden surprise. He whipped around and flung Miharu against a tree.

Miharu closed her eyes tightly and waited to hit the tree, but her landing was cushioned by a certain, holy softness in the air. She glanced at Kagome, whose eyes were barely alive and whose arm was thrust forward as she placed a protective shield around the small girl. With an uncertain grin, Kagome sprung from the ground, mouthing her a brief but undoubtedly earnest thank you, and ran between the trees as fast as she could while Susumu followed in fast pursuit.

Miharu swallowed and scrambled back into a tree.

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KAGOME PANTED WILDLY as she burst through the trees, searching desperately for some way to defend herself. She found nothing but bone and rock littered along the forest floor, and she could hear Susumu's footsteps coming nearer and nearer. Kagome settled for the same tactic she had used when confronted by the Council member--she flung her arms upwards to cover her face, and pink light spilled into the trees just as a streak of claws appeared, slicing through the illuminated figure of a recoiling man.

When the light dimmed down, an empty clearing in the forest appeared flickering in the shadowy afterimages. Inuyasha and Kagome stood at opposite ends of the clearing of each other, panting heavily and sweating. The sounds of battle could still be heard from a short distance away.

"Kagome..." Inuyasha finally said, standing upright.

"I'm fine," she whispered, licking her lips and also claiming an upright stance. "But we've got to help the others..."

"We've got to get out of here," Inuyasha insisted, shaking his head. "There's no way we'll be able to defeat everything back there without Tessaiga--they keep coming."

"Alright, but we have to get the others first! And I need to give them all some of my energy before we go, or they'll only be ghosts."

"OK, let's go," Inuyasha agreed. Kagome weakly ran after her half-demon companion, the words that Susumu had spoken to her already receding permanently and forgotten.

_Hurry,_ Kikyou barked from Earth. _The slayer and the monk are doing well with the demons coming through, but the faster you get out--the better. The monk's hell hole can swallow only so much before his hand poisons._

_We're coming!_ Kagome assured.

"We need to go fast!" Kagome shouted loudly as she followed Inuyasha back to the battle. In a flurry of desperate movement, the others were gathered and took some of Kagome's energy, and then they all ran to the gaping black portal that was opened nearby. In a burst of energy, they pushed through and joined their companions on the opposite side as Kikyou closed the portal behind them.

After everyone had caught their breaths and had assured themselves that they were, at last, safe on Earth, the gathering of people looked around in sudden observation of the others. Taro, Amaya, and Miharu were clumped around each other and, after sparing brief glances towards their company in the clearing, they went to checking each other for injuries.

Sango chided Miroku for over-using his wind tunnel while keeping one eye on the new-comers. Shippou was dubiously coming out of his hiding place while searching for Kirara's whereabouts. Inuyasha, mouth agape, flicked his gaze back and forth between Kikyou and Kagome.

Kagome suddenly smiled proudly and wearily at Kikyou, who kept a stoic face. But Kagome saw the depth in her eyes now, what she had only read as sadness before she now felt she knew was so much more.

_I did it, Kikyou..._ Kagome said over their connection, wondering if it was still in place. She had grown accustomed to Kikyou being there, a silent figure in her mind waiting only for her questions. They were two different woman who shared a soul but not a spirit; they were two different women who had worked together for a common goal.

_You did. And my respect for you has increased greatly. Two weeks ago, I will admit I was apathetic of your own existence. It made no difference to me whether you were here or there, or somewhere else beyond. But now, I am glad it is you and not some other woman who has been my successor. I am glad that we share a soul, priestess Kagome._

Kagome beamed slowly and brightly at the praise. Kikyou had never spoken praise to her, not in the times they had worked together before, not in the times she had saved the older girl's life. But there were the words, told only to her and dear.

_Only with your help, Kikyou. We worked together to bring him home again._

_Of course._

_I'm glad, Kikyou... not just that we're all alive and OK, but... I'm glad that we worked together._

Kikyou offered a very small, thin smile and her face softened. Inuyasha looked on with a look of shock plastered on his face. Kagome burst forward and embraced the priestess, who blinked her eyes open wide and surprised and then tentatively patted the younger girl's back.

"What the hell is going on with you two?" Inuyasha finally demanded. He felt as if a lot must have happened since the time he left for the two women to be glad of each other's company.

"Oh yeah," Kagome started, pulling away from Kikyou. "We worked together to get to you. She opened and closed the portal and guided me through Hell when I needed help."

Inuyasha looked slightly taken aback. Kikyou turned gracefully and left the clearing at a smooth gait, leaving the jabbering group behind.

When she arrived at the edge, just inside the shadows that the trees were making in the moon, she spoke out loud. "Keep your guard up from now on. My help during this time was unique, and will not be offered so easily a second time."

_Good bye, Kikyou,_ Kagome whispered mentally. There came no answer.

"Ka-Kagome--listen to me!" Inuyasha demanded, finally gaining control of himself, although while still looking bothered and confused. "Don't ever do that again! Next time, don't ever do something so fucking dangerous again, understand?"

"Of course," Kagome agreed as she collapsed onto the ground. She grinned up at the clear band of stars moving through the branches, bright as pure white pearls scattered across the sky. "Next time," she said, "I'm definitely not letting you go without a fight."

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Author's Notes: That was the last chapter of my very first completed fanfic. So thanks so much for your support, reviews, and e-mails! I will probably come back and clean up some of the chapters later. However, if you're interested, I do have a sequel going called **Godspeed**. Basically, it's the storyline reversed--Kagome accidentally goes to Heaven, so Inuyasha and Kouga work together to bring her home. Of course, Godspeed is much goofier than BH&H, and much more light-hearted. I do hope you enjoy it!

Update- I will not be touching this story again any time soon. If I do, I'll let you know by an announcement on the profile page or, if you would like me to send you one, an e-mail. One day in the far, distant future, when I'm a much better writer, I might try to re-write this and develop Kagome and Kikyou's relationship more. Until then! Thanks AGAIN SO MUCH for all your continued support on my first finished fanfic!

XOXO,  
Kyubi Kyebu


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